The silent main character of both games, Chell is an [[{{Determinator}} incredibly determined]] woman wearing an orange jumpsuit. Her exploits begin when [=GLaDOS=] awakens her from stasis to run a series of tests in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center for mysterious reasons.----* ActionGirl: To survive Aperture, it's a requirement.* AmbiguouslyBrown: Her face and body model had a Brazilian father and a Japanese mother.* CombatStilettos: An interesting version used as a tool rather than a weapon; her Long Fall Boots make it impossible for her to fall to her death. * {{Determinator}}: ''Pathologically'' so. According to her personnel file (in the ''Lab Rat'' comic), she's way ahead of the bell curve for tenacity. As it turns out, when you're dealing with [=GLaDOS=], cleverness and athleticism are ultimately less important than sheer stubborn refusal to give up.--> '''Proctor's note:''' Test subject is abnormally stubborn. She never gives up. '''Ever'''. Do NOT Test.* HeroicMime: [=GLaDOS=] even complains about her lack of response in the final chamber. [[AC:"Are you even listening to me?"]] In the sequel, Wheatley seems to think that overexposure to the stasis process left her unable to talk; when he asks her to, she just jumps. [=GLaDOS=] even calls her a "mute lunatic." and her file shows that she refused to answer one of the questions asked to her. She specifically chooses not to answer, because they're dicks and she doesn't want to give them the satisfaction. * HypercompetentSidekick: To Wheatley in the second game. [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] too, in the end.]]* IWasToldThereWouldBeCake: There really was a cake. She never did get it, though.* ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty: Although Chell's origins are unknown, the content of the science fair seem to indicate that she was most likely born sometime in the 1980s, and was probably in her 20's during the events of the first ''Portal''. Following the explosion which killed [=GLaDOS=], Chell was placed in a stasis chamber with an indefinite wake-up time.* LateToTheTragedy: In the first game, she goes through tests before she finds out what happened. In the second game, this time, she's ''really'' late.* MadeOfIron: Aside from falling, which is explicitly [[HandWave handwaved]] by her foot protection, Chell can survive things no human should be able to, but that's largely due to GameplayAndStorySegregation (the story probably assumes Chell is strong enough not to ever get shot, for example). However, one specific example of this being played straight is when she survives [[spoiler:Wheatley blowing up the stalemate button. Even ''he's'' shocked. And then she spends several seconds in vacuum]]. On the other hand, Chell spends at least twelve hours unconscious afterwards, so even she has limits.** Regarding the turrets at least, this is justified, somewhat, by the fact that the Aperture Turrets "fire the whole bullet" via a spring launcher and so are most likely less painful then being shot by a normal bullet.* MysteriousPast: We never do find out exactly who Chell is. [=GLaDOS=] likes to claim she's an orphan, which is true given how long she's been frozen. [[spoiler:In the Bring Your Daughter to Work Day experiment section in ''Portal 2'', one of the potato experiments was done by a little girl named Chell whose father worked at Aperture. It's the one with the potato that's grown through the ceiling -- it's clearly as {{determin|ator}}ed as Chell herself.]]* NoNameGiven: We can see her personnel file in the ''Lab Rat'' comic, but it just gives her name as "Chell [redacted]."* OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank: Chell can take tons of turret shots, and leaves ''large'' blood smears on walls when hit in the first game. 5 seconds, and you're okay again, ready to lose another three pints. On the other hand, the video displaying the turrets' inner workings offers another explanation in classic Aperture Science style: while the turrets are filled to the brim with real bullets, the turrets don't ''fire'' them - [[CartridgesInFlight they]] ''[[CartridgesInFlight fling]]'' [[CartridgesInFlight the whole thing at the target using springs]]! They probably still smart a bit, mind.* ParentalAbandonment: One of [=GLaDOS=]'s favourite barbs is to claim Chell was abandoned by her birth parents and later adopted.** Though [=GLaDOS=] also mentions that she found two other humans on the registry that share her last name. (Though if her file records her name as "[redacted]", this may not be saying much.) Even less considering the fact that [=GlaDOS=] most likely made this up to torment Chell further. * PhlebotinumRebel: [=GLaDOS=] really should have thought more on giving her that portal gun... * PlotArmor: Guess what? Ground-up moon rocks are pure poison! But they don't seem to affect Chell, though, so don't sweat it. (At least, we ''think'' they didn't give Chell cancer. Wow, that's morbid.)* ProgressivelyPrettier: By the looks of her design in the second game, it seems to imply she found some moisturizer, make up, and a hair brush, and fixed those stray gray hairs of hers. Perhaps the Party Escort Bot fixed her up to look good for the party.** [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110426214052/half-life/en/images/5/59/Chell_daydreamin.jpg Here]] she is in ''Portal 1'', and in ''Portal 2'' she looks [[http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/File:Chell_Portal.png like this]].* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: The backstory for ''Portal 2'' would suggest the game takes place in another epoch, perhaps even 50,000 years later.* RequiredSecondaryPowers: Chell wears a pair of ankle-springs in order to ensure her legs aren't shattered when she comes flying out of a portal. [[WordOfGod The commentary bubbles]] indicate early on that the reason was that playtesters complained that Chell could survive falls that would kill [[VideoGame/HalfLife Gordon Freeman]]. Despite the fact that the springs are patently insufficient to protect her, [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief they stopped the complaints]], so mission accomplished!** In ''Portal 2'', these have been updated to full shoes called the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX9Sc88qreg Aperture Science Long Fall Boot]], a "foot-based suit of armor" that's implied to have some kind of balance system forcing the wearer to land on her feet no matter what. This makes their ability to protect her ''slightly'' more justifiable.* ShutUpHannibal: When [[spoiler:Wheatley tells you to do yourself a favor and commit suicide because once you reach his lair he'll definitely kill you]], you can set up a portal network that throws a mine at his monitor.-->[[spoiler:'''Wheatley:''']] I'll take that as a "no," then.** She can smash monitors in almost all the test chambers, and can even get an achievement for doing it eleven times.* StockFootage: The reason the HeroicMime character has a voice credit here is because her grunts of pain from the first game are recycled from the female Citizens in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''.* SubmissiveBadass: She never actually says anything, and is all too willing to take orders from Wheatley and [=GLaDOS=], but she was responsible for destroying the omnipotent power-mad AI in charge of Aperture. Twice. [[spoiler: Well, three times. [=GLaDOS=] in the first game and in the second, and Wheatley in the second.]]* {{Troll}}: There are a couple of passive-aggressive things she does to get a reaction out of the people responsible for her unfortunate situation.** She [[HeroicMime refuses to speak]] simply to ''annoy'' the [[AIIsACrapshoot robots]], because she doesn't want to give them the satisfaction of a response.** According to ''Lab Rat'', on her application form for Aperture Science, instead of responding to a question, she decided to scribble "The Cake is a Lie" in binary.** If the player chooses to and has the ingenuity to do so, they can have Chell manipulate the various mechanics in Test Chambers to smash the OminousMultipleScreens set up by [[spoiler:Wheatley]], which doesn't accomplish any progress for the test itself, but definitely starts bothering him.* UnskilledButStrong: According to her file, she wasn't overly smart or athletic, but Doug Rattmann knew she would defeat [=GLaDOS=] not because of skill, but determination. Downplayed in that while she isn't necessarily the best in those areas, she does demonstrate the impressive skill and intelligence required to overcome the tests.* TheVoiceless: Never makes a peep.* WalkingDisasterArea: [=GLaDOS=] and Wheatley view her as this, despite each of the catastrophes resulting from their own attempts to control her. The former even composes a song about it.-->'''Wheatley:''' I didn't order in loads of spare monitors thinking some crazy woman was going to go around smashing them all. Sorry if that's ''my'' fault! Sorry if I didn't have the ''forethought'' to think, "oh, she might go crazy one day instead of just getting on with things"! Sorry I didn't think of that!* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: She uses the Portals to fling herself upwards, transport cubes and herself, knock over turrets, and kill giant robots. * WorthyOpponent: [=GLaDOS=], for all of her sniping, admits that Wheatley's plan could not have worked at all without Chell's help.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System ([=GLaDOS=])]][[quoteright:347:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/P2_GLaDOS_8772.jpg]]->Voiced by Creator/EllenMcLain

The artificial intelligence that seems to run Aperture Science. [=GLaDOS=] portrays herself as a helpful friend to Chell, but soon unveils a oddly sociopathic side to the testing protocols and a cruel side to her personality. As the game goes on, she becomes more and more sadistic, culminating in a violent confrontation as Chell attempts to escape the testing center. Chell apparently destroys [=GLaDOS=], but at the end of the game she is revealed to have a backup memory and Chell is dragged back to Aperture Science. Years later, Chell and Wheatley unintentionally reboot her. Needless to say, she has a bone to pick with her murderer.

Oh, and she has [[SelfDemonstrating/GLaDOS her own page now]], JustForFun. %% Mod Note: Do not change this! %%----* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: Done by having Ellen [=McLain=] imitate a text-to-speech program's inflections.* ActivationSequence: One of the most iconic examples in video game history.* AdoptionDiss: Brings up the player character (allegedly) being adopted as an insult repeatedly. In the second game she actually defends Chell when [[spoiler: Wheatly insults her with this.]]* AIIsACrapshoot: The whole "Killing everyone with neurotoxin" thing is a pretty big tip-off.* AndIMustScream: According to her, she [[spoiler:was forced to spend the hundreds of years in between the two games watching/reliving a recording of the two minutes leading up to her destruction over and over and over again, due to her blackbox feature]]. Of course, it's according to ''her'', [[UnreliableNarrator a pathological liar.]]* AnthropomorphicShift: An interesting example. Although she's always been based on the human form (on Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus," in fact), the original game's [=GLaDOS=] is far less relatable: her head is a grey semi-ellipsoid with a fixed yellow eye, and she doesn't have any body language to speak of. In the sequel she has a lot more emoting to do, so she was given a white, squared-off head (suggesting a certain sternness of jaw) with a much more expressive eye and vastly more human-like body language.* AntiHero: In ''Portal 2''. She's still evil, but this time, [[spoiler: she's on Chell's side.]]* AxCrazy: If slaughtering the majority of Aperture Science on ''bring-your-daughter-to-work-day'' within less than a picosecond of activation is any indication. * BadBoss: [=GLaDOS=] treats her custom robots the same way she treats everyone:-->[[AC:"Don't disappoint me. Or I'll make you]] ''[[AC: wish]]'' [[AC: you could die."]]* BadLiar: [=GLaDOS=] is ''very'' surprised you successfully completed the test, and it shows.* BackFromTheDead: In ''Portal 2''.* BalefulPolymorph: [[spoiler:Wheatley downloads her into a potato battery.]] [[AC:So, how are you holding up?]] ''[[spoiler:[[AC:Because I'm a potato.]]]]''* BigBad: The A.I. controlling the entire facility and responsible for all of the tests that Chell is forced to go through. [[spoiler: She loses this position to Wheatly halfway through the second game after he is plugged into the mainframe, which is revealed to have a corrupting influence.]]* BigBrotherIsWatching: The omnipresent security cam. Doug Rattman clearly fears them, as his graffiti includes pictures of the cameras with a warning to Chell not to be spotted.* BigOMG: [[spoiler:''"Oh. My. God.'' [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments It's the bird! Run! I have no plan for this! Abort! Forget your training! RUN!"]]]]** And a rather more serious one upon [[spoiler:realizing she might ''be'' Caroline.]]* BlackComedy: [=GLaDOS=]'s sense of humor.* TheCakeIsALie: [[TropeNamers Is this even a spoiler anymore?]]* CallingYourAttacks: The rockets and neurotoxin are deployed with great fanfare, though she laments she hasn't found a way to get it into Chell's body faster.* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Zig-zagged. In the original ''Portal'', [=GLaDOS=] has already exhausted her supply of test subjects, namely Aperture employees, by subjecting them to dangerous tests. By the time Chell is volunteered for testing, [=GLaDOS=] is realizing her error and is investigating ways of resurrecting Chell as a digital ghost, or so she claims. In ''[=Portal 2=]'', [=GLaDOS=] has ample opportunity to kill Chell when she pulls herself together, but instead re-deposits her into the test chambers "for science" (Wheatley is crushed and tossed aside, which shows his role in the Aperture facility to be worthless). Later, she admits Aperture programmed her with "an itch" to keep testing in perpetuity, and interruptions in the process cause a drop in "solution euphoria" which causes great stress to [=GLaDOS=]' circuits. She eventually develops a workaround by building two new robots, Atlas and P-body, to perform tests without fear of permanent death.* CardCarryingVillain: She's always gushing over the fun to be had with "revenge" and "killing machines" and the like. Also well-versed in [[Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli Machiavelli]], no surprise there.* CoresAndTurretsBoss: Her weapons and weak points are even ''called'' Personality Cores and Rocket Turrets.* CreepyMonotone: Or at least very passive-aggressive. And then when [[spoiler:you destroy the Morality Sphere]] and [=GLaDOS=] switches from robotic monotone to an emotive, almost ''seductive'' voice, the contrast is actually ''creepier'' than the robotic monotone that you've been listening to all game. By the second game she has achieved a happy medium between the two, sounding very close to a human with some slight robotic affectation.* CuriousAsAMonkey: Her curiosity sphere.-->"Ooh, what's that? What's ''that''? What is that? Ooh, that thing has numbers on it! Hey, you're the lady from the test! Is that a gun? What's wrong with your legs? [[spoiler:Do you smell something burning? *SCREAM*]]"* CuteMachines: Her spheres, especially the Curiosity Sphere.* CyberCyclops: Just like every other piece of Aperture tech.* DeadpanSnarker: So much so that she is the Goddess of it in our [[Pantheon/{{Technology}} Pantheon]]. That should tell you something.* ElectronicSpeechImpediment: But only to begin with.* EnemyMine: [[spoiler:With Chell after Wheatley takes over the mainframe in ''Portal 2''.]]* EvenEvilHasStandards: In the Peer Review DLC, when [=GLaDOS=] searches for insults to hurl at Atlas and P-body, she comes across a YourMom joke. Before she is able to finish it, she declares that "That's just disgusting. Keep testing instead".* EvilIsPetty: Piss her off and she'll start ranting about how you're ugly, not very smart, and nobody ever liked you anyway.** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by [=GLaDOS=] herself as soon as Wheatley starts trying to copy her insults.* ExactWords: "We will stop [[UnusualEuphemism enhancing the truth]] in three... two...[cut off by static]"* {{Expy}}: Her personality in the first game was LighterAndSofter version of VideoGame/{{S|ystemShock}}HODAN. She grew out of that in the second game.* FalseReassurance: [=GLaDOS=] is quite fond of these.* FauxAffablyEvil: A borderline parody of this trope; she's always speaking in a soft voice, but her words are almost always peppered with passive-aggressive sarcasm as she sends Chell off to her doom. ''Portal 2'' takes it even further, with her voice having a bit more of a "bounce" to it, making her sound much more cheerful and energetic as well as more snide when she makes her trademark sarcasm...and this persists even while she's threatening to murder Chell.* FinalBoss: In the first game.* ForScience: Her primary motivation. Allegedly. She has an odd understanding of what science ''is'', though.* FreudianExcuse: For all of her insanity and cruelty, [[spoiler:''Portal 2'' implies the mainframe she's plugged into is designed to make her somewhat crazy. The personality cores attached to her also influence her behavior in odd ways, and she begins to show signs of being slightly nicer when freed of them. Not to mention the process of Caroline having her [[BrainUploading mind uploaded (against her will no less)]] was implied to be pretty traumatic, and thus may have been a trigger for [=GLaDOS=] attempting to kill the scientists 1/16 of a picosecond after being activated.]]* FromNobodyToNightmare: In a meta sort of way. At the start of the game, there's no indication that her voice is anything but slightly glitchy prerecorded messages. Flash forward to the end of the game, and that same voice is the final boss.** And also in a much less meta sort of way: she goes from being [[spoiler:a subservient secretary to]] a tightly monitored mainframe computer/testing program to the unchallenged goddess-queen of a vast underground empire.* GeekyTurnOn: [[spoiler: She gets particularly... excited at the end of the co-op campaign when you and your partner find a cache of human test subjects locked in stasis.]]* GeniusLoci: The entirety of the Enrichment Center is essentially an extension of her body, since she controls and maintains everything.* GuestHost: In ''VideoGame/PokerNight2''. Subverted in that while she's involved in the game and not playing alongside the others, she's the ''dealer'' for that game, not the host.* HauntedTechnology: Haunted by [[spoiler:the woman whose mind was forcibly shoved into her.]]* HeelFaceTurn: Arguably in the second half of [[spoiler:''Portal 2'' as soon as Wheatley betrays Chell, takes over [=GLaDOS=], and puts her core into a potato. She and Chell [[EnemyMine reluctantly team up]], and once the facility is restored, she saves Chell's life and lets her go along with the original CompanionCube - although she claims it's just because killing Chell is too much trouble.]]* HoistByHerOwnPetard: The boss fight in ''Portal 1''. "[[AC:Huh. That core may have had some ancillary responsibilities. I can't shut off the turret defenses. Oh well. If you want my advice, you should just lie down in front of a rocket...]]" *BOOM*** In the sequel, [[spoiler:her taunting Wheatley after he becomes the central sphere enrages him so much that he puts her into a potato, barely able to function without using up the tiny amount of power it generates. She gets better.]]* HumansAreSpecial: Sort of acknowledged in a cut line from ''Portal 2'':-->[[AC:Humans must have some purpose other than a place to store your neurotoxin -- something I failed to notice before; an intangible quality that makes their test results significant.]]* HypocriticalHeartwarming: Wheatley, in an effort to emulate [=GLaDOS=], goes back to the well again (specifically, ''Portal 1'') and cooks up a few schoolyard taunts about Chell's weight/parentage. How does [=GLaDOS=], listening in, react to this? ''She calls him out on his prejudice!'' Predictably, Wheatly deflates and starts sputtering about "[[SomeOfMyBestFriends some of my best friends]]" to save face.-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' ([[AC:By the way, you ARE adopted [[AndThatsTerrible and that's terrible]]. But work with me here.]])* IgnoredEpiphany: From ''Portal 2''' ending:-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[spoiler:[[AC:You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend. The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson: where Caroline lives in my brain.]]]]\\'''Announcer''': [[spoiler:[[AC:CAROLINE DELETED.]]]]\\'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[spoiler:[[AC:Goodbye, Caroline. You know, deleting Caroline just now taught me a valuable lesson. The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one. And I'll be honest. Killing you? Is hard. You know what my days used to be like? I just tested. Nobody murdered me. Or put me into a potato. Or fed me to birds. I had a pretty good life. And then you showed up. You dangerous, mute lunatic. So you know what? You win. Just go.]] [laughs gently] [[AC:It's been fun. Don't come back.]]]]* ImpliedDeathThreat: She's a huge fan of these, even before her real intentions towards Chell are revealed. --> '''[=GLaDOS=]''': As part of a previously mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be... missed.* InLoveWithYourCarnage: Gets especially excited at Cave's maniacal WhenLifeGivesYouLemons rant, particularly when he talks of burning houses down.-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[spoiler:[[AC:Burning people! He says what we're all thinking!]]]]* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: When trying to boost the self-confidence of P-body and Atlas, [=GLaDOS=] informs them that she was born with a crippling imperfection -- too much sympathy toward human suffering. She proudly informs them that she overcame that weakness.* {{Irony}}: While [=GLaDOS=] calls out Chell with a YouMonster line, she [[spoiler: proceeds squeezing Wheatley to near-death and throws his seeming carcass out of Chell's sight]] like her regular days with her test subjects.* KarmaHoudini: At the end of it all, [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] is still around, and has [[IgnoredEpiphany deliberately ignored]] any lessons she might have learned from the fiasco, save for finally abandoning her obsession with testing Chell.]]* KillerGameMaster: [=GLaDOS=] acts similar to this, throwing difficult scenarios at you, lying in order to confuse and torment you, and live-ammo courses in place of the original courses. When you go OffTheRails, she tries to lasso you back in with lies before resorting to overkill methods.* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Eventually decides killing Chell is more trouble than it's worth and [[spoiler:just lets her go free.]]* LackOfEmpathy: Her interactions with Chell in ''Portal 2'' help her start to build empathy... [[spoiler:which she deletes at the end of the game. At least she doesn't want Chell dead anymore.]]* LeanAndMean: About as much as a robot can be, anyway. Her design in ''Portal 2'' in particular is gracefully sleek.* LethalChef: The core with the Cake Recipe suggests multiple garnishes including fish-shaped solid waste, [[ShapedLikeItself sediment-shaped sediment]], two ''needle injectors'', one cup rhubarb ''on fire'', and a blog entry entitled "How to Kill Someone With Your Bare Hands". On a ''chocolate cake''.* LivingForeverIsAwesome: Expresses this in both her songs. For instance, "When you're dead, I'll be still alive." However, there ''may'' be a note of discomfort and unhappiness in both instances, since she is notoriously [[UnreliableNarrator dishonest]].* LoadBearingBoss: She says she has no idea what's going on outside, only that she's the only thing keeping herself and Chell safe from "them" (presumably the Combine from ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''). Once you destroy the last personality core, her mechanism goes into meltdown and blows you and bits of [=GLaDOS=] out of the building. The fact that [=GlaDOS=] has to continuously maintain the facility is made explicit in ''Portal 2'', where [[spoiler:the facility's nuclear power generator [[GoingCritical goes critical]] because Wheatley is too stupid to stay on top of its upkeep]].* LongList:** One of her personality cores in the first game has the sole function of reciting a long, [[LethalChef bizarre]] cake recipe.** When going over the files of the test subjects that Atlas and P-body found, she lists off many, many, MANY personality flaws, all of which pertain to ''one'' particular subject.* LossOfIdentity: [[spoiler: Implied to be a side effect of Caroline's BrainUploading and[=/=]or the constant babble of the personality cores.]]* MindHive: ''Portal 2'' reveals that she [[spoiler: experiences those personality cores as maddening, constantly babbling voices in her mind. After TheReveal, she becomes aware of Caroline's persona within her as "the voice of a conscience [...] ''my'' voice." She finds that even more disturbing.]]* MiseryBuildsCharacter: Most of her CharacterDevelopment is undergone while in the helpless form of a [[spoiler:potato skewered onto Chell's portal gun]].* MissionControl: Though it's won't be long before you doubt she has your interests at heart. And then "mission" becomes "be incinerated"...* MissionControlIsOffItsMeds: She runs Apeture Science, and yeah, she's batshit insane.* MoralMyopia: It's okay when ''she'' tries to kill you, but you kill her, it's murder.--> "The difference between us is that I can feel pain."* NotQuiteDead: As if the ending song didn't give it away, [=GLaDOS=] is revived in the sequel and ready to conduct several new tests on the player.* ObviouslyEvil: In ''Portal 2''. [[spoiler:At least, it was like that at first.]]* PassiveAggressiveKombat: Not only is she a psychotic murderous AI, she's also ''incredibly'' passive aggressive. Most of her dialogue in ''Portal 2'' (or at least the first half) is her insisting how she's actually surprisingly unbothered that you ''murdered her'' while simultaneously reiterating the fact that you ''murdered her'' over and over again, just in case you missed the fact that you ''murdered her'', while also casually letting you know all the horrible things that are in store for you over the next sixty years of being trapped as a test subject for her as a consequence of ''murdering her''. And that's when she's not otherwise directing barely-veiled snide jabs [[EvilIsPetty about your weight and being adopted]] at you. You ''murderer''.* PetTheDog: ** [[spoiler:For all she claims to only be acting out of self-interest and laziness, she ''really'' didn't have to save Chell's life or give her the Companion Cube at the end of Portal 2.]]** [[spoiler: In the ''Art Therapy'' downloadable content, she winds up adopting some baby birds that were abandoned by their mother...so she can turn them into killing machines.]]* PragmaticVillainy: [[spoiler:She says at the end of ''Portal 2'' that killing Chell is just more trouble than it's worth and lets her go. Not because she likes her or anything.]]* PretenderDiss: Most of her exchanges with [[spoiler:Wheatley.]]-->[[AC:Alright, he's not even trying to be subtle anymore. Or maybe he still is, in which case, wow, that's kind of sad.]]* PunyEarthlings: Deciding that Atlas and P-body are moving too clumsily for her tastes, [=GLaDOS=] throws a fit and suggests that they drop everything and start acting like humans.-->[[AC:Boy, do I love sweating. Let's convert beef and leaves into energy and excrete them later and go shopping.]]* RedOniBlueOni: With Wheatley in the sequel. [=GLaDOS=] is the Blue Oni.** Their colors are inverted, with Wheatley being blue and [=GLaDOS=] being red (well, her optic is yellow, but close enough in the circumstances).* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: [[spoiler:Caroline really didn't want to be uploaded]]. As soon as she was turned on, [=GLaDOS=] proved completely uncontrollable for the Aperture scientists and had them all killed or placed in suspended animation. * SarcasticClapping: [=GLaDOS=] has an entire processor ''devoted solely to this'', or so she claims.%% * SelfProclaimedLiar* ShapedLikeItself: Her Logic/Intelligence/Knowledge Core, when describing cake garnishes:-->"Sediment-shaped sediment."* ShoutOut: ** [=GLaDOS=] is more or less a female [[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey HAL 9000]] in the role of [[Literature/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream AM]].** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57lVjxOTr-M Unused dialogue from co-op]] involves her talking about a comic strip involving [[ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} a certain cat who loves lasagna]].* SinisterSurveillance: With those cameras of hers always trained on you, and her being able to detect you even after [[spoiler: escaping the fire pit]] in the first game, [[BigBrotherIsWatching she's always watching you. Always.]]* SoftspokenSadist: After the morality core is destroyed, her voice stays slightly robotic but becomes smooth and rather seductive. The switch is an immediate indicator that she's done screwing around.* StabTheSalad: The ending to ''Portal 2''. She ''appears'' to go back on her promises of freedom, depositing an unarmed Chell in an elevator with four primed turrets--but the turrets simply start to sing.* StealthInsult: Her favorite technique for gradually destroying a test subject's self-esteem.* TaughtByExperience: In the sequel, she's learned that trying to actually fight Chell doesn't work. She thus tricks Chell into a sealed container that is transported to [=GLaDOS=]' lair. She then drops turrets around the chamber, then drops a pipe in to pump in neurotoxin. The only reason it fails is because Chell and Wheatley are even ''better'' at this trope than her and have pre-emptively cut off her supply of turrets and neurotoxin.* TimeLimitBoss: [=GLaDOS=] pumps the room with neurotoxin during your fight with her.* TookALevelInJerkass: [=GLaDOS=] is understandably mad about being killed in the first game, and thus her commentary in the second is a lot more passive-aggressive and snarky towards Chell, including mocking her over being adopted.* ToThePain: [[spoiler:Wheatley]] is probably lucky he's stranded in space, far away from [=GLaDOS=]. Sure, he's back to being an immobile orb with no autonomy, but at least he's not being flash-fried in a furnace for a year, frozen solid for another year, [[LoudOfWar tormented by shrieking robots]] for 10 years or any of the other theme park rides [=GLaDOS=] is overheard preparing for him in her head.* TranquilFury: When she awakes in the second game, she just says "Oh, it's ''you''." Her delivery is calm, but leaves zero doubt that she is ''pissed''. Contrast her... enthusiasm when she hears Cave Johnson's rant about combustable lemons.* {{Troll}}: She spends a great deal of time saying things designed to anger or demoralize Chell, out of spite.* {{Tsundere}}: A really, really, ''really'' extreme Type A -- oh, she hates Chell, but there are definite hints that her emotions toward her are considerably more complicated than ''just'' hatred. Many players see it as a case of StalkerWithACrush or MyBelovedSmother, depending on how you interpret her personality and the hints about her background.** Erik Johnson, the game's program manager, compares her to "a jealous ex-girlfriend."* UncannyValley: Her tinny, artificial-sounding voice.* TheUnintelligible: The Anger Core. In fact, it sounds creepily like a rabid dog.* UnwillingRoboticisation: Carol's mind was implanted into [=GLaDOS=] against her will.* VillainousBreakdown: When you try to invoke ThisIsMySide [[note]]Refers to a DummiedOut line that still remains in the source files.[[/note]] ''during the final boss fight'' and spend most of said fighting making petty insults, you're broken. It probably doesn't help that Chell spent the fight ''ripping her mind to pieces and setting them on fire.''-->'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[AC:Stop squirming and die like an adult or I'm going to delete your backup! STOP! Okay enough, I deleted it. No matter what happens now, you're ''dead.'' You're still shuffling around a little but believe me you're ''dead.'' The part of you that could have survived indefinitely is gone. I just struck you from the ''permanent record.'' Your entire life has been a mathematical error. ''A mathematical error I'M ABOUT TO CORRECT.'']]* VillainousRescue: [[spoiler:At the end of ''Portal 2'', [=GLaDOS=] [[TakeMyHand pulls you back]] out of the Moon portal.]]* VisualPun:** As the effects of [=GLaDOS=]'s morality core begin to wear off, her monitors display a small pile of screws. [[spoiler:She ''does'' have quite a few screws loose by this point. On top of that, she's about to screw you, and not in [[CargoShip the fun way]].]]** When she says "[[AC: Despite your vio-lent behavior...]]" the screen displays a violin with a knife stabbed through it.* WasOnceAMan: She was created to fulfill Cave Johnson's wish to leave [[spoiler: Caroline eternally in control of the facility. This [[GoneHorriblyWrong did not go well]].]] * WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: [=GLaDOS=] [[spoiler:as a potato]] quickly develops a massive fear of birds.-->[[spoiler:BIRD! BIRD! KILL IT! IT'S EVIL!]]** Makes a return [[spoiler: in the Peer Review DLC for co-op mode. The facility is being "controlled" by the same bird that antagonized Wheatley and [=GLaDOS=] previously.]] * WomenAreWiser: Probably not coincidentally, each of the corrupted cores have a male voice--or androgynous, in the case of the Curiosity Core--and none of them offer any insights worth hearing. [=GLaDOS=] also worries that [[spoiler:Wheatley]] lacks the mental discipline to do without "solution euphoria" for more than a few minutes (as painful a process as denying drugs to an addict), which turns out to be the case.** [=GLaDOS=] has it together better than her creator, wannabe inventor and shower curtain tycoon Cave Johnson. Though she, too, ends up killing most of Aperture's staff, at least she does it intentionally.* WorthIt: Says this about [[spoiler:tricking Wheatley into trying to give a hint about a test chamber, giving him a painful shock.]]* WouldHurtAChild: She had no qualms about flooding the Enrichment Center with neurotoxin on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: [=GLaDOS=] is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of employees, but [[spoiler:her backstory as Caroline is quite tragic.]]* YouAreFat: A good amount of her insults towards Chell in the sequel are about her weight. She helpfully informs ATLAS and P-body that humans are very sensitive about weight variances.-->'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[AC:Did you know humans frown on weight variances? If you want to upset a human, just say their weight variance is above or below the norm.]]* YourMom: In the Peer Review DLC, [=GLaDOS=] attempts one of these to turn the robots into killing machines. However, she stops mid-sentence because she finds it too [[EvenEvilHasStandards disgusting]].[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Weighted Companion Cube]][[quoteright:166:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cit_weighted_companion_cube_LIVES.jpg]]->Voiced by no one as it, in fact, cannot speak.

A large, (apparently) inanimate cube with hearts printed on each face. That's it. [=GLaDOS=] tries to get Chell to form an emotional attachment to it, then forces her to incinerate it.----* BrickJoke: [[spoiler:Shows up in the last few seconds of ''{{Portal 2}}'' despite only being vaguely alluded to since the first game.]]* CompanionCube: The TropeNamer.* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: [[spoiler: [[http://gamerant.com/portal-2-writer-chell-ending-half-life-connections-dyce-81430/ Word Of God speculates]] that maybe the Companion Cube, instead of being given to Chell by [=GLaDOS=], was having its own adventures this entire time offscreen. It just managed to escape at exactly the same time as she did.]]** [[spoiler:"... in which case its probably pissed.]]* HeartSymbol: To distinguish it from normal boxes.* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: According to some of Rattmann's writings, the cube is violent, dangerous, and also his best friend.* MurderByCremation: Alas, poor Cube... [[spoiler:Nah. It's okay. Just burnt really badly.]]* NotQuiteDead: It is seen near the cake at the end of the original, suggesting it may have survived.* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Among other things, beta testers caused the creation of the CompanionCube. Carrying it was necessary to complete the level, but beta testers didn't realise this until late on, and were annoyed to have to go back and get it. Over-emphasizing its importance to you fixed that problem.** Because the players needed to know how incinerators worked for the boss fight, it was decided that the Cube would be incinerated once it was done. They hadn't realised how popular the Cube would be with the players, and a tragic story of failing to save a friend was created* TalkingApplianceSidekick: To Doug Rattmann, at least. [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] claims the cubes are actually sentient in the sequel, but she's ''probably'' not being serious.]]-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' The Enrichment Center reminds you that the [[InsistentTerminology Weighted Companion Cube]] will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak.** In Portal 2, it can be heard humming Cara Mia (aka "Turret Opera") when it's nearby.** In LegoDimensions (which to be fair is probably Non Canon) they're full of bones! They were alive at SOME point.[[/folder]]

A mysterious person who left clues for Chell to find scrawled along the course of the testing center. His identity is never really touched upon in-game, but the promotional [[ViralMarketing Alternate Reality Game]] to promote ''Portal 2'', as well as the new comic to bridge the gap between the two games, gives us more about him.----* AllThereInTheManual: Or rather, A Little More There In The ARG and Comic: He was a programmer at Aperture Science who managed to survive [=GLaDOS=]'s release of the neurotoxin on account of suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, which allowed him to [[ProperlyParanoid correctly deduce]] that yes, an evil computer was trying to kill everyone (while the other scientists were aware that [=GLaDOS=] was violent and unstable, they failed to take the threat seriously enough until it was too late). After being made a test subject, his knowledge and clearances allowed him to manipulate the test chambers and make dens for himself, living in these nooks and plotting his escape.* AlternateUniverseReedRichardsIsAwesome: The Bizarro Universe Doug Rattman who's CEO of Aperture Science.* BadassLabcoat: Almost never seen without that white coat.* BigGood: The closest example to be found, though he rarely appears in the flesh.* CompanionCube: He takes one with him wherever he goes. He's so crazy that it talks to him, and is surprisingly very helpful. * CrazySurvivalist: He's clinically insane, so he lived.* DeadpanSnarker: When he's on his medication, he's a match for [=GLaDOS=].-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' Have you refilled your prescription lately?\\'''Doug:''' '''''Bite me.'''''* DisabilitySuperpower: When Rattmann is on his schizophrenia meds, his Companion Cube doesn't appear. Without its advice, he seems to be a lot less effective, [[spoiler:eventually causing him to get wounded by a turret.]]* TheGhost: Never appears in either game [[spoiler:and likely dead by the time of ''Portal 2'']], all the player sees of him is the drawings he leaves behind in various lairs scattered throughout the Enrichment Centre.** The music on the Portal 2 soundtrack for one of his dens is called "Ghost of Rattman".* GotVolunteered: He knew that he didn't have what it took to defeat [=GLaDOS=], but he could look through the test subjects' psych profiles and find someone who did.* LeParkour: He improvises.* MadArtist: Responsible for all those insane scribblings in the facility.* MadnessMantra: TheCakeIsALie** In ''Portal 2'', if the player stands directly in front of one of his murals, you'll hear [[http://youtube.com/watch?v=TNvFd4SOfj8 this.]] To date, all attempts to fully and accurately transcribe this rambling have met with failure.* MismatchedEyes: In the comic, Doug's pupils are almost consistently of uneven size, and when there is a noticeable difference, his right pupil is always the larger of the two. It is not known if this is a purely stylistic choice (perhaps meant to artistically emphasize Doug's psychosis), or if the artist intended him to have [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisocoria anisocoria]] (pupils of unequal sizes).* IcyBlueEyes: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_blue#Powder_blue_.28web_color_powder_blue.29 Powder blue]]  so light they almost look white sometimes.* MustMakeAmends: Willingly went back into the facility after he'd gained his freedom, unable to live with knowing he'd used Chell to defeat [=GLaDOS=] and then let her be killed when he might have saved her.* OnlySaneMan: Despite being a paranoid schizophrenic (though to be fair, he's on meds at the time), he's the only one at Aperture to realize that when a computer consistently tries to murder you within [=1/16th=] of a picosecond every time you turn her on, she's probably going to kill you the first chance she gets.* PowerBornOfMadness: He imagines the Companion Cube is talking to him and its advice was ''tremendously'' useful at surviving the {{Death Course}}s throughout the lab.* ProperlyParanoid: It's implied that his paranoid schizophrenia was the key to evading [=GLaDOS=] long after all the other employees had been captured. Sane people tend to dismiss thoughts like "What if an insane computer is trying to take over the facility and kill us all?" as crazy, which is something of a survival disadvantage when that's actually what's happening. However, considering [=GLaDOS=] had consistently attempted to kill them all within one tenth of a picosecond of being switched on (up from one sixteenth of a picosecond when she was first activated), he might have just been the only one who wasn't TooDumbToLive.* PropheticName: A name so convenient, you'd expect him to be a ''{{Spiderman}}'' villain.* PunnyName: He survives by looting food and hiding behind loose panels.* RoomFullOfCrazy: "I [[HeartSymbol <3]] CompanionCube." His dens are full of poetry adapted to mention the cube, pictures of things in the center (mostly the cube, of course) and other scrawlings.-->the cake is a lie\\the cake is a lie\\the cake is a lie\\the cake is a lie** In ''Portal 2'', it would seem his obsession changed to being centered around Chell, with vivid detailed murals of her sprawled across walls.* SanitySlippage: Due to being stuck in the lab after [=GLaDOS=] goes beserk, he can't refill his medication. Hence, he appears quite sane during the past segments of the Lab Rat Comic. Compare that to his scribblings in the first game, and his basic appearance in the present comic segments.[[/folder]]

Small white machines placed throughout the facility to ''[[AC:[[DummiedOut provide you with product.]]]]''----* AdorableEvilMinions: [[AC:Hi. Target acquired. Firing.]]* AffablyEvil: They seem quite affable for a bunch of bullet-spewing death machines.* AIIsACrapshoot: They're really just guns that can talk. [[spoiler:Until ''Portal 2''.]]* ApologeticAttacker: [[AC:I don't blame you. I don't hate you. No hard feelings.]] * BottomlessMagazines: Justified in this [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGPIQ72-2Vg trailer]], where Cave shows you how they cram all those bullets in.* CartridgesInFlight: As pointed out and [[LampshadedTrope Lampshaded]] in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGPIQ72-2Vg this trailer]]. That the bullets are launched by springs instead of their much stronger propellant may help to explain why Chell can take so many bullets from them and keep on going.-->'''Cave Johnson:''' We fire the whole bullet! That's 65% more bullet per bullet! * CuteMachines: Well, until they pepper you full of lead. * EnemyMine: A mild version in ''2'', after[[spoiler: Wheatley takes over the facility, the turrets seem just as eager to shoot at him (or at least his monitors) as they are at Chell.]]* GrotesqueCute: Namely due to their voices, not to mention how polite and apologetic they are while they open fire on you [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbzUT-99w88 And they ''sing'']]%%* FlatJoy* InsistentTerminology: "Dispensing product", not MoreDakka.* KingMook: The Animal King turret, a massive, leopard-patterned turret with a crown used to illustrate what to do in one of many apocalypse scenarios Aperture anticipated. [[spoiler:It also plays bass, just because]].* LaserSight: A beam of light comes straight from their eye, and follows you if they spot you, but it also lets you know how to block them and where they're looking. * MoralityChip: According to a diagram in the ''Portal 2'' promo trailer above, the turrets contain an "empathy generator" and an "empathy suppressor" to counter it out.* MoreDakka: They never run out of ammo. '''Ever'''.* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: The Oracle Turret from '' Portal 2''.* PetTheDog: ''Portal 2'' has an achievement for rescuing the Oracle Turret from a conveyor belt. It has some strange things to say in response.%%* RedEyesTakeWarning* StandardFemaleGrabArea: [[ItMakesSenseInContext In a manner of speaking]]. Picking up a turret (if you can get past its gunfire or sneak up on it) will automatically orient it away from you and prevent it from firing. Add the responses to such actions including "Hey!" and "Put me down!" (which of course use cutesy female voices).* VillainsOutShopping: The turrets make [[spoiler:such a lovely choir]].[[/folder]]

[[folder:Party Escort Bot]]

The Party Escort Bot, alternatively known as the Party Associate, is a robot appearing in the retconned PC version of Portal, as of the March 3, 2010 patch. It's only role in the game is to drag Chell back into the facility after she defeats [=GLaDOS=], so that she can have new adventures in the sequel.----* ChekhovsGunman: When [=GLaDOS=] first mentions him, it appears as if he does not exist at all. Then there is no mention of him for a long time, until he suddenly turns up as a DiabolusExMachina in the ending.* DiabolusExMachina: After Chell has survived hours of deadly testing, [=GLaDOS=]' deathtrap, navigated the facilities, and then confronted [=GLaDOS=] in her room and defeated her, she ends up semi-conscious on a parking lot, and this robot drags her back into the facility.* TheDragon: Apparently is this to [=GLaDOS=]* TheGhost: Was this before the March 3rd update.* PaletteSwap: The robot is seen on one panel in the ''Lab Rat'' comic, and it is apparently merely a purple version of Atlas, or possibly a personality core with arms (which Wheatley was planned to have, per the commentary, but were cut because they could not believably retract).* RoboSpeak: In the one line it has in the game, it probably has the most severe case of RoboSpeak in the entire series.* WhamLine: "Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position."* TheVoice: Although it is obviously very close to Chell in the ending, it is actually never seen as it drags her back in-game. No-clipping reveals merely a placeholder box with the text "beans" on it. Ironically, in the Lab Rat comic, the robot becomes TheVoiceless, as it is revealed for the first time, but has no dialogue.[[/folder]]

!Portal 2

[[folder:Wheatley]]

[[quoteright:250:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Wheatley_1943.png]]->Voiced by Creator/StephenMerchant

An artificially intelligent "personality core" reassigned to ensure the wellbeing of the test subjects. Practically a polar opposite to [=GLaDOS=], Wheatley appears friendly and [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} slightly scatterbrained]]. He helps Chell in her second run through Aperture Laboratories, but accidentally revives [=GLaDOS=].----* {{Adorkable}}: He's a stuttering, not too smart bit of adorable technology.* AffablyEvil: For an [[spoiler:AI-turned-psychotic-junkie trying to murder you,]] he sure is likeable.* AGodAmI: [[spoiler: Becomes an egomaniac after being plugged into [=GLaDOS=]'s mainframe. That thing is apparently quite the power high]].* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:Wheatley is launched into orbit at the end of the game, left drifting in the depths of space for an unknown amount of time, and regretting every bit of harm he caused.]]* ArtificialStupidity: [[spoiler: Oddly enough, an ''intentional'' in-universe example. His sole reason of existing is to consistently give [=GLaDOS=] stupid ideas and make bad decisions.]]* TheAtoner: Becomes this in [[spoiler:the final scene of ''Portal 2''. He's a little too late for that.]]* BadSamaritan: [[spoiler:Basically, he's just using Chell to seize control for himself and bring the other robots to their knees. This was not his original goal, but his slide into megalomania occurs alarmingly quickly]].* BerserkButton:** [[spoiler:"[[PunctuatedForEmphasis I am NOT! A! MORON!]]" [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Gee, thanks a lot, [=GLaDOS=].]] The irony is just astounding.]]*** [[spoiler:Interestingly, he doesn't take to idiot as much as moron before you plug him into the core transfer replacement transfer receptacle. Either he wasn't listening, ignoring that one comment or [=GLaDOS=]'s body made him sensitive to those comments.]]--> [[spoiler:'''[=GLaDOS=]''': "Do ''not'' plug that idiot into the mainframe!"]]--> [[spoiler:'''Wheatley''': "Yes, you ''should'' plug that idiot into the mainframe!"]]** [[spoiler: During his tests, there is always some way you can destroy his monitors. He doesn't mind at first, but it quickly gets on nerves once you break more.]]* BigBadSlippage: [[spoiler:Technically the main villain the second game, he actually starts out legitimately helping Chell. It's only when he's plugged into the mainframe that he turns against her.]]* BigBadWannabe: [[spoiler:Wheatley pulls every cliché in the book, from an attempt at maniacal laughter which leaves him out of breath(!), to referring to his "lair" and booming that Chell is "'''''[[YouFOOL FOOLISH]]'''''" for daring to defy him.]] Behind the bravado, Wheatley is a big marshmallow who still wants people to like him.* BigStupidDoodooHead: When he tries to imitate [=GLaDOS=]'s style of insults, the best he can do is "fatty fatty no-parents."* BondVillainStupidity: [[spoiler: After he springs his trap, he could have easily dropped you into the bottomless pit, for example, by not putting those other faith plates there, or not swithcing on the tractor beam. Instead, he navigates you to that platform where you can escape. With this, he also gets you closer to his lair.]]* BossRemix: "Bombs For Throwing At You (Five Part Plan) is a high-paced techno jam, very similar to [=GLaDOS'=] "You Can't Escape, You Know". It uses elements from the Old Aperture Science theme, as well.* BriarPatching: [[spoiler:He almost gets the upper hand during the final boss battle, when he implores Chell ''not'' to approach the unguarded Stalemate Button, which he actually rigged several explosives to, and he doesn't reveal the bombs until you try and press it.]] You can actually hear him chuckling to himself when [=GLaDOS=] directs you to go press it.* BookEnds: [[spoiler:GRAB ME GRAB ME GRAB MEEEEEE!]]* BuffySpeak: The creatively-named "spinny-blade wall" and "mashy-spike-plate." He also refers to Chell as "Little Miss Smashy-Smash" if she continues trashing his wall screens.* ButtMonkey: You have to feel for the guy, an over-ambitious core who is eternally out of his depth.* CallingYourAttacks: Acquires this habit when he [[spoiler:takes over [=GLaDOS=]' body]], announcing his (usually botched) attacks with the glee of somebody retracting the rope ladder to his treehouse. It becomes less silly when he deploys his [[strike:five]] four part plan.* CaptainObvious: Wheatley is a genius computer hacker. He can differentiate between the tower and the monitor, for instance.* ClintSquint: His eye slit gets narrower and narrower the more his ego is bruised.* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He's obviously not the sanest individual in Aperture [[spoiler:and boy, does it show by the end of the game.]]* CollapsingLair: Albeit caused by his own sheer incompetence, and not by his opponents. [[spoiler:In the final battle with him]], the walls of his headquarters are being eaten away by flames.* ComedicSociopathy: "I shouldn't laugh; they do feel pain. Of a sort."* CompensatingForSomething: At some point, to prove he's not stupid, he'll talk about reading a book, even having the sound effect of him ''turning the page''. He'll keep insisting the fact he's reading means he's not stupid.* ConfusionFu: [[spoiler: His unpredictable idiocy and poker face regarding death traps surprises even [=GLaDOS=]. This makes Wheatley more dangerous when in control of the the Aperture Science mainframe than [=GLaDOS=] ever was. He's incapable of controlling such a massive system, he can't be deterred by consequences he's too dumb to foresee, he's TooDumbToFool with clever tricks, and when he manages to stumble upon a genuinely cunning idea by sheer chance, it usually takes you by surprise. This leads to him wrecking much of the complex before Chell and [=GLaDOS=] even return from the old labs, and it all goes downhill from there.]]* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: [[spoiler:He ends up stuck out in space along with the Space Sphere, having to stand his {{squee}}ing over being in space for the rest of his existence.]]* CowardlyLion: He appears to be afraid of his own body and thinks several actions he can take, such as disengaging from his rail or turning on his flashlight, will kill him (although he does actually try both those things). Also, he's afraid of heights. And birds.* CuteMachines: Yes, he is adorable, like the turrets. [[spoiler:Not so much once he takes over the Enrichment Center.]]* CyberCyclops: He's only got one eye; his body is just a mechanical orb.* DisneyDeath: Shortly after [[spoiler: [=GLaDOS=] is reactivated, she crushes Wheatley between her ceiling-suspended claws. He gets better about three test chambers later.]]* DisneyVillainDeath: Inverted. [[spoiler:Chell shoots one portal underneath him, and the other on the moon, sucking him out into space.]]* DistaffCounterpart & MeetTheNewBoss: [[spoiler:Halfway through the game, Wheatley manages to detach [=GLaDOS=]' head from her body (with your help) and take over the facility for himself.]] But he's still prone to the same foibles and tricks.* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: His reaction to [[spoiler:watching Chell and [=GLaDOS=] get through the tests]] is a bit ''enthusiastic''.** Also, his [[spoiler:VillainousBreakdown in the final fight]] is very reminiscent of a jilted lover who's breaking up with his girlfriend.* DontExplainTheJoke: [=GLaDOS=] doesn't quite grasp the subtleties of trash-talking a human, and Wheatley is even worse. You can almost see [=GLaDOS=] pulling her hair out at his half-baked taunts, if she had hair.* DrunkWithPower: [[spoiler:And then he starts suffering withdrawal symptoms.]]* EvilBrit: [[spoiler:After his FaceHeelTurn.]]* EvilLaugh: Twice. Slightly hampered when it leaves him feeling winded.* ExactWords: Valve said that the voice of Wheatley would be provided by, in their words, "Some guy from the office". Originally it really was: the placeholder voice was provided by Valve animator Richard Lord. Then they chose Stephen Merchant, most well known for co-writing and appearing in the UK sitcom ''TheOffice''.* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:It's even referred to as this in the game sound files. It's unclear how much of it was the mainframe's decision though.]]* FacelessEye: Just like other cores.* FeigningIntelligence: After being called a moron by [=GLaDOS=] repeatedly, he starts playing classical music and pretending to read Machiavelli, apologizing for the distracting noise of rifling pages.** Wheatley is holding all the cards, and ''they're all full houses''. (He doesn't actually play Poker, mind; he's been meaning to learn.) Ace of Fours!* FinalBoss: [[spoiler:For the second game.]]* FromNobodyToNightmare: He started out as [[spoiler: an [[IdiotBall intelligence-inhibitor]]. Then he gets plugged into [=GLaDOS=]'s mainframe, and becomes even more unstable and destructive than she ever was.]]* GeniusDitz: Even [=GlaDOS=] is forced to admit it at one point [[spoiler:as he's bringing Chell and [=GLaDOS=] to the "surprise"]].** A closer look at the game shows Wheatley is a moron when it comes to foresight, but not hindsight; He is stupid enough to make terrible mistakes, but he never seems to make the same mistake twice. By the end of the game, he starts to ''foresee'' himself making mistakes and prepares auxiliary plans in case the others fail.--->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[AC:For a little idiot built specifically to come up with stupid, unworkable plans, [[SmarterThanYouLook that was a pretty well laid trap.]]]]* HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler:After Wheatley is removed from [=GLaDOS=]'s body, he feels genuinely sorry. Too bad he's stranded in space now.]]* HumansAreSmelly: Whealtey's open in his lack of regard for the "smelly humans" trapped in the relaxation chambers. However, this probably stems more from Whealey's resentment at being passed over for promotion, rather than animus toward people. (Realizing his mistake, [[InsultFriendlyFire he mumbles an apology to Chell.]])* IMeantToDoThat: Wheatley is a chess grandmaster on par with Deep Blue, or so he would have you think.-->You know what I have too many of around here, monitors. I was just thinking earlier today I wish I had fewer monitors that were working. So you're actually helping me, by smashin' them.* IdiotBall: As a personality core, he's spherical and he was built to [[spoiler: make [=GLaDOS=] dumber. He also grabs onto one after going insane; he informs you that he won't make the mistakes [=GLaDOS=] did, having made all surfaces in his lair unsuitable for applying portals. He has also rerouted three gel tubes into his room, including one that supplies Conversion Gel allowing you to apply portals in his room. This alone wouldn't be so bad, but he also doesn't bother to wait for the neurotoxin to kill you -- he throws bombs too, breaking the tube and providing you access to the Gels.]]** [[spoiler:What's more, he rerouted the Conversion Gel pipe through the room ''even though he had previously seen you use it right in front of him'' to escape from his anti-portal trap at the beginning of the chapter. If you wait long enough at said trap, [=GLaDOS=] even tells Wheatley ''to his face'' exactly what the Conversion Gel does!]]* ImplausibleDeniability: "''Was''. The facility ''was'' self-destructing. Already fixed. [-*offscreen explosion*-] Just programmed in one last tremor, for old time's sake. [-*series of explosions*-] Two. One or two more tremors in there."* IneffectualSympatheticVillain: After [[spoiler:his FaceHeelTurn. Competent plans, utter lack of proofreading.]] The final insult comes when the sprinkler system washes away the portal conductors that allowed [[spoiler:Chell]] to beat him. -->"Ah. That just ''[[NowYouTellMe cleans right off]]'', does it? Well, that would have been good to know. ''A little earlier''."** [[spoiler:That said, his incompetence and recklessness actually make him even MORE dangerous in some ways, so he's not ineffectual in that sense -- he remains sympathetic largely because he's as much a danger to himself as to anyone else.]]* IntercontinuityCrossover:** A flattened, but still [[MotorMouth talkative]], version of himself appears in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' as a weapon for the Spy.** Via a mod collaboration between Valve and Bethesda, [[spoiler:ends up orbiting [[Franchise/TheElderScrolls Nirn]] an indeterminate length of time after the ending.]]* KickTheDog: [[spoiler: During the final battle, he taunts Chell that he expected her to die obtaining the portal gun, and that she wasn't the first person he had sent after it; she was just the one who survived the longest.]]* KnowNothingKnowItAll: One of the dumbest beings in existence, but convinced he's brilliant. [[spoiler: Not played up too much during the first half, but gets much worse when he's plugged into [=GLaDOS=]'s mainframe. He seems to be over-compensating for the knowledge that he was specifically designed to be a moron.]] More understandably, he is unaware of [=GLaDOS=] and Chell's history while forming his escape plans.* LaserGuidedKarma: Wheatley resents being labeled "a moron" by [=GLaDOS=], who put up with his inanity for years (possibly a decade or more). [[spoiler:He winds up tethered to an even more talkative and idiotic A.I., the Space Sphere, presumably for eternity as they drift aimlessly through space.]]* {{Leitmotif}}: There is a specific nameless tune associated with Wheatley that appears in several tracks throughout the game. It plays during [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAeiqxNH3W0&t=1m1s Reconstructing More Science]], the moment when [[spoiler:[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1gsKeTi1Bg&t=1m27s he betrays you]]]], and in his [[spoiler:[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uAsD6lQV1I&t=3m49s boss battle]]]].* MotiveDecay: His initial goal is, like Chell, to leave the facility. He forgets this as time goes on. * MotorMouth: His utter inability to shut up is one of the highlights of this game. So much so that even if you just sit there for a few minutes, he'll ''still keep talking''.* TheNapoleon: [[spoiler:After surfing into the Central Core's body]], he spends the remainder of the game flapping his panels about, as though trying to make himself seem even larger.* NeverMyFault: At one point, while using an excursion funnel to get to the next test chamber, you are threatened by another chamber that's about to fall in your way. He decides to turn the funnel off, which almost kills you. In the next chamber, he claims you told him to do it.* NonPlayerCompanion: He takes this role near the start and middle of the game.* OminousMultipleScreens: [[spoiler:Wheatley tries his hand at the whole Blofeld-supervillainy]] thing by projecting his face on oversized monitors through the arena. Like everything else, it backfires when Chell smashes them to bits.-->"Starting, now (if I'm honest), to wonder if you're doing all this screen-breaking on purpose. ''Beginning'' to take it personally. You know what I mean?"* PokeThePoodle: Pretty much any of his attempts to puff himself up and be intimidating, like [=GLaDOS=], are doomed to failure. He can't even pull off her boss banter without apologizing.* ThePollyanna: His manner is remarkably blase, considering the apocolypse going on outside and the fact that the Apeture Science is devoid of life. He also assumes the best of [=GLaDOS=] in their first encounter. She responds by hoisting him up and [[GettingTheBoot hurling him across the facility with great force.]]-->'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[AC:Oh, it's ''you''.]]\\'''Wheatley''': You know her?\\'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[AC:It's been a long time. How have you been?]]\\'''Wheatley''': (I think she likes you!)\\'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[AC:I've been really busy being dead. You know, after you ''murdered me?'']]\\'''Wheatley''': You did '''''[[BigWhat WHAT!?]]'''''* PsychopathicManchild: When he starts [[spoiler: ranting at [=GLaDOS=] and Chell he sounds distinctly like a child throwing a tantrum at an elder.]]%%* RedOniBlueOni: With [=GLaDOS=]. Wheatley is the Red Oni.* ShootTheTelevision: Unlike [=GLaDOS=], Wheatley insists on projecting his face throughout the test chambers. This leads to some passive-aggressive comedy when Chell hurls cubes/bullets/lasers at his flatscreens, cracking them beyond recognition. At first, Wheatley reacts with smugness ("Aw. Bless your little primate brain. I'm not actually in the room with you, am I?"), then condescension, then guilt-trips Chell about starving African orphans not being able to afford [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative flatscreens for their test chambers]], then grumbles about the cost of unbolting and replacing all of these smashed monitors.* StrawFan: Wheatley cannot design a test to save his life. Lacking all originality, he can only recycle tests [=GLaDOS=] designed (autographing the walls with florescent bulbs to disguise his plagiarism) or, in true Frankenstein style, hastily stitch together various turrets and ''entire rooms'' with no regard for clashing mechanisms or wall textures. ("Seamless!") Word of God says the "Wheatley Laboratories" were inspired by actual {{game mod}}s -- a bit of biting the hand humor considering Valve later released a legit puzzle maker. * StupidityInducingAttack: Built to be one [[spoiler: against [=GLaDOS=].]]* SurroundedByIdiots: Thanks to Wheatley's dodgy construction, the gun turrets can't even be trusted to fire. That is, unless they've discovered a way to garrote [[spoiler:Chell]], which would explain the lack of screaming. Yeah, that's the ticket.* TaughtByExperience: As he directly addresses, he recognizes the mistakes [=GLaDOS=] made and doesn't re-make them. [[spoiler:He's only defeated because he had the misfortune to make his lair around pipes of the colored gels.]]-->"I took the liberty of watching the tapes of you killing her, and I'm not going to make the same mistakes. Four part plan is this. One: No portal surfaces. Two: Start the neurotoxin immediately. Three: Bomb-proof shields for me. Leading directly into number Four: Bombs. For throwing at you."* TemptingFate: [[spoiler:If you wait long enough, Wheatley practically hands Chell the keys to defeating him, shouting that her "precious human moon" can't save her now.]] Whoops.** And just before that, he gets annoyed at the Space Sphere and says, "[[spoiler:Nobody's going to space, mate!]]" Wrong!* ThisIsGonnaSuck: His reaction upon awakening [=GLaDOS=], only compounded when [=GLaDOS=] says to Chell "[[AC:...After you]] ''[[AC:murdered me?]]''"* TooDumbToFool: [[spoiler:[=AI=] brains as simple as those of the Frankenturrets short out in response to hearing a simple logical paradox. Wheatley's idiocy prevents him from even noticing it.]]* TyrantTakesTheHelm: Subverted; Wheatley is all thumbs when it comes to robotics, and his tests leave a lot to be desired. The Aperture logo on the loading screens is replaced with a shoddy makeover, with a crooked-looking "Wheatley" logo flickering to life.* TheUnreveal: Wheatley explains how he survived [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] crushing him]], but doesn't think to stop talking when the Aerial Faith Plate bouncing you up to him stops working and thus you can't hear him anymore.* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler: Wheatley really starts to panic after Chell escapes his "surprise". He also gets continually more aggressive and paranoid-delusional during the final battle.]]* WalkingSpoiler: Notice the amount of blanked text for this entry compared to other characters?* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: Employs a more direct approach to hacking doors, such as when he attempts a "manual override" of a "docking gate" by [[OpenSaysMe slamming Chell's relaxation chamber into it.]] It's also his sole method of creating an "exit" in an otherwise inescapable test chamber. ** Frankly, a great many of his "devilish" traps just involve [[SpikesOfDoom attaching spikes]] to ordinary wall panels and smashing them together.--->"Holmes versus Moriarty. Aristole versus '''''MASHY'''''-'''''SPIKE'''''-'''''PLATE!'''''"* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: His original plan seems to have been simply to escape from the deteriorating facility, but [[spoiler: once he takes over [=GLaDOS=]'s role as master of Aperture, he almost immediately becomes paranoid, vengeful, and obsessed with running experiments.]]%%* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds[[/folder]]

->''"You're not part of the control group, by the way. You get the gel. Last poor son of a gun got blue paint. Ha ha ha! All joking aside, that did happen. Broke every bone in his legs. Tragic, but informative! Or, so I'm told."''->Voiced by Creator/JKSimmons

The founder of Aperture Science, originally a shower curtain manufacturer before he succumbed to mercury and/or moon rock poisoning. The company's more esoteric inventions came about following Johnson's descent into madness.----* AchievementsInIgnorance: He wanted to make diet pudding; he made repulsion gel instead. He wanted to make a fuel injection system de-icer; he got a psychotic AI instead. Even the name of his company--a synonym for "Portal"--refers to his original line of shower curtains.* AffablyEvil: He's really very likeable for someone who treats his employees and test subjects the way he does.* AllThereInTheManual: Johnson and Aperture Science's history are mentioned only in supplemental material until ''Portal 2'', though said supplementary material has been made non-canon for the most part due to the major RetCon.* AluminumChristmasTrees: The lunar poisoning he got from moon rocks? It's both very real and very lethal.* AlwaysSecondBest: Cave Johnson's trophy case contains a number of trophies, certificates, etc. which always show Aperture falling just shy of Black Mesa, with the exception of [[MundaneMadeAwesome Potato Sciences]]. Oh, and he was a great shower curtain salesman. [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative The best, in fact.]]* AndAnotherThing: The Pre-recorded Messages are full of these. Apparently the test chambers aren't quite deadly ''enough''. Cave casually mentions to each "control group" that he's been covertly experimenting on their bodies since before the tour began: such as injecting their coffee with radium, or implanting a crude computer chip in their forehead which may overheat and explode.-->"If you meet yourself on the testing track, don't make eye contact. Lab boys tell me [[NeverTheSelvesShallMeet that'll wipe out time.]] Entirely. Forward and backward! So do both of yourselves a favor and just let that handsome devil go about his business."* TheArtifact: Was slated to be a combination of [[spoiler:Wheatley's role in going power mad and Caroline's role of having been forced into [=GLaDOS'=] body, and the main villain of ''Portal 2'']]. As part of the rewrites that wrote out most of the personality cores and upgraded Wheatley's status, Cave was also rewritten to be simply a recorded voice. However, his original role did end up being used as the basis for [=CaveDOS=] in the Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC.* BadBoss: His attitude toward anyone except Caroline can be most charitably described as "insensitive", to the point that just sitting on a chair in Aperture's lobby will give you testicular cancer. Good news, though, the test chambers are built entirely out of asbestos, [[SkewedPriorities to keep out the rats.]]-->"The bean counters said I couldn't fire a man just for being in a wheelchair. Did it anyway. [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain Ramps are expensive!]]"** [[spoiler: Then again, once Cave made up his mind about [[BrainUploading putting Caroline's mind in a computer]], she stopped being an exception.]]* BadNewsInAGoodWay: "The average human male is about sixty percent water. Far as we're concerned, that's a little extravagant."** Some of the control groups of the 1950s fared better than others. The athletes who did ''not'' rush to volunteer for injection with praying mantis DNA have an easier assignment to complete: a shooting gallery vs. dozens of gnarly Praying Mantis-Men. "Pick up a rifle and follow the yellow line. [[CannonFodder You'll know when the test starts."]]* BadNewsIrrelevantNews: Pretty much any time Cave warns the test subjects that the next room "might" make them bleed gasoline, defecate coal, or teleport every part of their bodies besides their skin. On the plus side, if Aperture can extract some commercial spin-offs from their deaths, "they're gonna have to invent a new type of Nobel Prize to give us", so take heart, astronaut/war hero/Olympian/hobo.* BrainUploading: Prior to his death, he had his scientists working on this. The jury's out on whether he managed to live that long, [[spoiler:but his assistant Caroline certainly got the treatment]].** Perpetual Testing features a Cave who did indeed upload himself into a computer. He takes ''slightly'' longer to go murderously insane than [=GLaDOS=], [[spoiler: although we never learn what exactly he did to Greg and the boys.]]* BunglingInventor: Nothing his company invented fulfilled the purpose it was intended for, and some of the leaps of logic between what the inventions were supposed to do and what they ''actually'' do are achievements all by themselves. Most of them have obvious practical applications that would be incredibly useful, but Aperture would always insist on marketing them for some other purpose for which they were completely unsuited. It seems he would order his scientists to invent a thing and then they'd do it, even if it took bending the laws of space and time into a pretzel.* CannedOrdersOverLoudspeaker: Aperture scientists never get a moment's peace. In fact, the reason there are so many Cave Johnson Pre-recorded Messages is because his workers pleaded with him to stop barking at them over the intercom all day. Cave responded by recording even ''more'' messages.* CatchPhrase: [Beginning of video] "Cave Johnson here..."** "Good job, [x]."** "We're [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial not just banging rocks together!]]"** "Cave Johnson, we're done here." [Video ends.]** "Chariots chariots."[[note]]"Chariots chariots chariots."[[/note]]* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: His understanding of science is a little off, and the Conversion Gel poisoning certainly didn't help.* ComedicSociopathy: It's said that a corporate culture is shaped by its leader. If that leader is completely out of his tree, then you get Aperture Science. * CommanderContrarian: Rather ironic for somebody who devoted his vast fortune to science, he has little patience for "eggheads" and their mortality rate charts. Cave never misses an opportunity to mock them over the loudspeaker, claiming they wouldn't know adventure if it "snapped their little pink bras", then ends up re-wording what they just said [[GladIThoughtOfIt so it becomes his idea.]]* ComplexityAddiction: $70,000,000 for moon rocks. 70 million he could have saved by, say, firing a portal gun at the moon and sending that group of astronauts to go mine some. This isn't a plot hole; this is ''entirely in-character'' for Cave.* CompositeCharacter: He's a mixture of [=GLaDOS=] (devoted to SCIENCE!) and Wheatley (clueless imbecile), which is why the Chell/Wheatley alliance reminds [=GLaDOS=] of happier times.* {{Crossover}}: According to ''VideoGame/PokerNight2'', he worked with [[WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers Dr. Jonas Venture]] at some point.* DareToBeBadass: The following speech has followed in the footsteps of "TheCakeIsALie" to {{Memetic Mutation}}dom:--> "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! ''Get mad!'' I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?! Demand to see life's manager! Make life ''rue'' the day it thought it could give ''Cave Johnson lemons''! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! I'm the man who's gonna ''burn'' your house down! ''WITH THE LEMONS!'' I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a ''combustible'' lemon that ''BURNS YOUR HOUSE DOWN!''"* DeathByIrony: Much like [=GLaDOS=], Cave found himself at a loose end after running out of test subjects and had to improvise. Unlike [=GLaDOS=], he was not impervious to poison, and succumbed to respiratory and renal failure from inhaling too much moon dust.* DirtyCoward: A line from a DummiedOut conversation with Cave claims that the actual reason for [[spoiler:turning Caroline into [=GLaDOS=]]] was because he thought it was too dangerous for the first trial to be done on himself. This is coming from a man who fired someone for ''asking'' why everything was dangerous.* EurekaMoment: While dying of lunar radiation poisoning, Cave gives his last directive: invent brain-mapping and artificial intelligence in a last-ditch effort to prolong his own life. A somber Cave ruminates that Apature should have been focusing its energies on A.I. way back in the fifties.* EvenEvilHasStandards: He's not so much "evil" as "thinks ethics are for wimps", but Greg's daughter creeps him ''right the hell out''.-->"I'm sorry, Greg, but there is something wrong with that kid!"* ForScience: His motivation.* GoodOlBoy: A parody of the modern-day American industrialist, with a distinctive midwest twang.* GreaterScopeVillain: He's the madman who, more or less, created everything connected to Aperture, including [=GLaDOS=].* HanlonsRazor: Based upon Cave Johnson's reasoning for his treatment of other humans it's difficult to tell if he's amoral, immoral or just nuts. Embracing willful ignorance like he does in the belief that all scientific discovery occurs by accident, which would be hindered by competence, is clearly not the reasoning of a healthy mind, but does his deliberate stupidity make him more evil or does such a belief make him more stupid? We may never know for sure.-->'''Johnson''': Good enough for science...but not ''Aperture'' Science!* HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee: Specifically in 1968, to account for what happened to the astronauts that went "missing" after volunteering to test for him. Cave's legal bills for defending himself eventually drive the company nearly bankrupt by the mid-seventies. Black Mesa capitalizes on the situation and their own sterling reputation to pirate Cave's goods (or so he claims).* HotBloodedSideburns: 70's Cave had thinning hair, but an impressive set of mutton chops to go with his [[{{Pornstache}} 'stache.]]* IRejectYourReality: Placed greater value on positive thinking than on "bean counters" and their jars of red ink.* IncurableCoughOfDeath: Implied to have succumbed to this. The only thing ever said about his condition (by his own admission) was that moon dust, [[ChekhovsLecture despite being a great portal conductor]], is incredibly poisonous, and that Cave was "deathly ill" as a result of tampering with Conversion Gel.* KillThePoor: He is plainly resentful of having to equip homeless bums with bleeding-edge technology, but alas: budget cuts. Aperture also promises to "scoop out" any cancerous growths that sprout on their internal organs free of charge--further antagonizing poor Cave, who grumbles that the winos ought to be ''paying him''.* LargeHam: See his "Lemons" speech for proof.* LethalChef: Aperture's first attempt at diet pudding foodstuffs was a mixture of fiberglass insulation(!), which in itself was mostly non-toxic, except that it coated the intestines and forced still-intact food to erupt from the customer's digestive tract. For obvious reasons, this product was pulled from the shelves and re-branded as Propulsion Gel. The company's second attempt resulted in Repulsion Gel, a pudding which caused food to bounce off the dieter's stomach lining. Astonishingly, even after bathing himself in lethal moon dust, Cave still proposes mixing it into an gel to counteract the poison. Hair of the dog?* MadScientist: He conceived the portal gun [[strike:after]] [[RetCon before]] being stricken with dementia from [[RetCon lunar dust]] poisoning. He had previously been developing shower curtains for the military. He also created the Counter-Heimlich Maneuever and the Take-A-Wish foundation, which are as pleasant as they sound. Not to mention his complete and blatant disregard for the health and safety of the subjects for the test programs.** Some of the fluff material from ''Portal 1'' claims that Johnson figured out portal technology but was so insane by that point he ignored it because it wouldn't be very useful for military-grade shower curtains. Although it's evident by ''Portal 2'' that that has been [[RetCon retconned]], as the portal technology turns out to be very prominent [[spoiler: as seen when being thrown down into Old Aperture]].* MissingStepsPlan: To the end, Cave kept throwing nonexistent money at increasingly-harebrained projects ''guaranteed'' to dig his company out of the hole. It's hard not to root for someone whose buying habits make Nicolas Cage look like Ebeneezer Scrooge and who advocates mixing together moon rocks to see what happens. Unfortunately for Cave, moon rocks are poisonous. Ever the optimist, he hopes to somehow reverse-engineer Aperture's astronomically expensive moon paste to see if it can leech cosmic radiation from one's bones. (Nope.)* MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning: Even dead, his work continues in the bowels of Aperture Science.* NeverMyFault: What ultimately destroyed Aperture was Johnson's refusal to accept how his own insane decisions were ruining things. As memetastic as his "Lemons speech" is, it's ultimately the ranting of a man who still refuses to accept that all that's happening to him is the fallout of his own terrible ideas and insanity. Granted, he ''is'' insane, so he may genuinely be too crazy and/or stupid to realise his own fault in the matter.* NiceToTheWaiter: He does genuinely like and appreciate his secretary, Caroline. [[spoiler:Brutally subverted when his admiration of her results in him forcefully turning her into [=GLaDOS=].]]* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: In the casting call for him, he was described as being based on two redneck billionaires, Ted Turner and Ross Perot. As presented in the game, he bears more than a passing resemblance to Creator/WaltDisney, particularly regarding his recorded announcements (reminiscent of those Disney contributed to the 1964 World's Fair) and his [[spoiler:wish to cheat death by being scanned into a computer -- much as Walt Disney was rumored to have tried to cheat death by being posthumously cryogenically frozen]].* ObliviouslyEvil: [[spoiler:Given his sincere respect and affection for Caroline, it seems likely that it genuinely just didn't occur to him that forcing involuntary BrainUploading on someone is a horrible thing to do to them. The moon rock poisoning may have had something to do with it.]]* OurFounder: We see a time-lapse progression of his illness in the corporate portraits.* PetTheDog: He may be a ComedicSociopath who has sent countless people to their deaths through irresponsible use of his inventions and inhumane testing procedures, but he [[NiceToTheWaiter treats his secretary with profound respect]]. [[spoiler:Even his decision to upload her mind into a robot against her will seems to have been motivated by the sincere conviction that she deserved to be in charge of Aperture forever, combined with total obliviousness to what she actually wanted.]]* PointyHairedBoss: His leadership style, complete with [[WeHaveReserves total disregard for the safety and well-being of his subordinates]], fits the trope like a glove.* PopularSayingBut: His lemon rant.* PosthumousCharacter: Via prerecorded messages.* PowerBornOfMadness: How else can you create a device which holds a miniature black hole, and can warp all laws of space-time (at least enough to create two portals)?* ProfessorGuineaPig: He announces his intention to "pour" his brain into a newfangled artificial intelligence, though he predicts--correctly, as it turns out--that he will die before the prototype shell is completed. Probably inevitable as he spent most of the 50's burning through professional test subjects like elite military members and Olympic athletes, then spent most of the 70's luring vagrants off the streets by promising them $60 for their troubles, to finally in the 90's sacrificing his own employees by making test participation mandatory. Had he survived until the AI was ready, he'd likely have been the only live/expendable person left in the company. * ReadTheFinePrint: The Aperture Science signed release form is, by his own admission, "a phonebook" which nobody entirely reads.* RealityEnsues: Holds fast to a "shoot from the hip", All-American philosophy which takes him far...but breaks down when he attempts to apply it to science.* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: Deconstructed. He only barely listened to his own scientists and flagrantly disregarded advice from his own accountants on what he could and could not afford to spend money on. Not too surprisingly, his company fell on hard times the further this went on (though it seems to have improved in his absence).* RichesToRags: Listening to his prerecorded messages in order, you can hear his voice getting steadily more frustrated and disenchanted with his work over the decades.* UndyingLoyalty: His employees followed his every word, no matter how crazy. Anyone else acting like this would have been thrown in jail, possibly murdered.** Even [[spoiler:Caroline]] seems to have some of this -- even after [[spoiler:he inflicted involuntary BrainUploading on her, she still seems to hold some affection for him, if [=GLaDOS=]'s response to his final prerecorded message is anything to go by]].-->'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[spoiler:(sadly) [[AC:Goodbye, sir.]]]]* {{Unperson}}: Since most of his patents were appropriated by Black Mesa (due to corporate espionage and poor management on Cave's part), the company's biggest claim to fame is their "participation" in the 1968 Senate Hearings on missing astronauts.* UnreliableNarrator[=/=]RetCon: The "official" timeline of Aperture Science on the website when the first game was released doesn't quite jive with Cave's speeches. ** Among other things, his illness wasn't apparently due to mercury poisoning, but an allergic reaction to ground-up moonrock gel used to make stable portal-surfaces. He appears to have lived at least until early 1980's. The Portal Gun appears to have been one of Cave's ''first'' inventions at Aperture (since all of his Enrichment Spheres require its use, and a poster in the 50s era test chambers depicts a test subject with an enormous early version of the portal gun), rather than an idea he imparted while on his deathbed... although since he was, according to the 'old' timeline, convinced time was going backwards, it could be both.* WhenLifeGivesYouLemons: His famous, memetic rant is listed above.* WrongParachuteGag: One of Cave's messages admits that, in his zeal, the scientific control for the Repulsion Gel was blue paint, meaning he was flinging some of his volunteers down an empty shaft. * YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: His attitude toward Caroline, whom he considered too modest to fully appreciate her own abilities. In context this is [[GoneHorriblyWrong less heartwarming than it sounds]].[[/folder]]

Two robots -- one adapted from a personality sphere (Atlas), the other from a turret (P-body) -- created by [=GLaDOS=] to run tests in the Enrichment Center. Atlas is assumed to be of masculine personality, and P-body to be feminine. See them in action [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkATYz_tF-U here.]]----* BashBrothers: Or perhaps BattleCouple depending on how one views them in terms of gender. They can also choose to [[ManHug hug]] [[RoboShip each other.]]* BrainUploading: It's implied that their personalities are recorded for easier reinsertion into new robotic bodies whenever they "die".* CuteMachines: Again, like the turrets and Wheatley, they are cute and silly. One launch TV ad shows them playing around with the portal gun and giggling like children before [=GLaDOS=] shows up and puts them to work testing.* DeathIsCheap: The two robots are uploaded into a new body whenever they die, as illustrated by the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkATYz_tF-U trailer.]] P-body dismisses its destruction (and Atlas's role in it) with a wave of its hand. Then gets him back [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvx5XBS3cwY later]]. In fact, they are transported to other test chambers by being disassembled and later reassembled.-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[AC:Don't disappoint me -- or [[FateWorseThanDeath I'll make you]] ''[[FateWorseThanDeath wish]]'' [[FateWorseThanDeath you could die.]]]]** The ''Portal 2'' team say this is a major reason for using robots as the co-op mode characters. They wanted [[TheManyDeathsOfYou your (many) deaths]] at the hands of badly-planned maneuvers, incompetent or jerky co-players, and just larking about, to be funny and more consequence-free than showing humans being crushed, shot, or falling in acid and so forth.** As the tests go on, [=GLaDOS=] actually starts getting disappointed with this, as watching her lab rats ultimately make a mistake and die is the only satisfaction she gets out of the job.* ElectronicSpeechImpediment: Although their general dialogue is mostly unintelligible, if you listen hard enough you can make out specific word-analogues, such as them saying "Hello" to each other in the intro cinematic.* FatAndSkinny: Atlas is short, round and bulky. P-body is tall and lean.* GrievousHarmWithABody: When Atlas yanks P-body's turret body out of its frame for a giggle, P-body picks it up and gives him a solid crack upside the head with it. * NotSoStoic: Atlas tends to be the more reserved one in everything he does - except for when either initiates a hug. * RedOniBlueOni: Illustrated during the introductory cutscene where the two are assembled for the first time. P-body is happy enough to let the robotic arms weld it together, while Atlas is shown anxiously trying to dodge them and escape from the construction area.-->'''P-body:''' ''[cheerfully waving to Atlas]'' [[AC:Hello!]]\\'''Atlas:''' ''[nervous]'' [[AC:...Hi?]]** Depending on how you view their personalities in gender terms, it can also be an example of either TomboyAndGirlyGirl or SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan. The fact still stands that P-Body is far more feminine-looking than Atlas, while the trailer mentioned above puts their personalities in a far different manner.* TrueCompanions: [=GLaDOS=] learns that as much as she tries, she cannot drive them apart and pit them against each other.* VitriolicBestBuds: You kind of get this impression from them when you are capable of [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential killing your friend with the pop of a portal]], as well as using the gesture feature to both [[JerkAss laugh at them]] and engage in slapstick.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Defective Turrets]][[quoteright:202:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Defective_Turret_5389.png]]->Voiced by Creator/NolanNorth and Creator/EllenMcLain

Aperture Science's turret assembly lines are less than 100% efficient. These little guys have a few minor faults. Like having been assembled sideways. Or having been loaded with ammo still in the box. Or being completely insane.----* BodyHorror: Well, look at it from their point of view. Some of them have no casing. Some of them were put together ''sideways''.** They're fairly upbeat about it though. --->"Oh no, I'm one of the bad ones aren't I?"\\"Shootin' blanks, [[{{Radio}} every time, all the time]]."\\"Well, I tried."* EvilLaugh: Whichever defective turret you designate as the new template for quality control will indulge in this whenever one of its brethren passes or when one of the functional turrets gets thrown out.* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's a slightly-less defective turret on the [[KillItWithFire Turret Redemption Line]] early on, whose main defect seems to be babbling a mix of cryptic Foreshadowing and complete nonsense.-->'''Oracle Turret''': Her name is Caroline. Get mad, don't make lemonade. The answer is beneath us. It won't be enough. [[Myth/GreekMythology Prometheus]] was punished by the gods for giving the gift of knowledge to man. He was cast into the bowels of the earth and pecked by birds.* {{Harmless Villain}}s: They're so enthusiastic... if only they could actually attack.-->"Hey lady, do me a favor. Tell 'em I killed you."* ItWorksBetterWithBullets: As [=GlaDOS=] [[spoiler:and later Wheatley]] eventually learn.* OhCrap: They say this every now and again.* RedemptionEqualsDeath: The Turret Redemption Line, [[LiteralMetaphor as a literal example.]]* SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud: On the test-firing range, defective turrets may say "Clackity-clack-clack!" instead of firing (or attempting to fire).** "Uhhhh... Blam! Blam blam blam! [[BlatantLies I'm not defective!]]"* SpontaneousHumanCombustion: One of their many, [[SerialEscalation many]] design flaws.* WeakTurretGun: "So... we're all supposed to be blind, then, right? It's not just me?"[[/folder]]

A hybrid of two turrets and a Weighted Storage Cube.----* AndIMustScream: They are unable to move, save for having to attempt to hop forward, they are permanently stuck together, and they can't even so much as fire at you anymore. It really makes [[spoiler:Wheatley]] appear to be even worse when you think about the fact [[spoiler:that he ''made these things himself''.]]* BodyHorror: Yes, even purely mechanical robots can apply for this; the merging is crude, and the Frankenturrets' pitiful chirping and terrified reactions when picked up make their miserable state clear. The commentary notes their withdrawing into a cube was initially just to make them be cubical when picked up, but it was so cute they added shaking animations and wide-eyed reactions to the turret to make the player sympathize with their plight.* CuteMachines: They're hastily put-together hybrids that [[spoiler:exist primarily to satisfy Wheatley's addiction to testing]]...but ''they're so darn adorable!''* DrivenToSuicide: They're not really capable of steering, but if they're pointed at an Emancipation Grill, bottomless pit or anything else that would kill them if they approached it, they'll lurch their way right to their own deaths.* LogicBomb: Several of them are fried when a paradox is spoken in their presence. [[MercyKill They probably welcomed it.]] [[spoiler:Note that this implies that they're not only sentient but actually ''smarter than Wheatley'', although that isn't saying much.]]* MercyKill: The poor things look like they are just telling you "Throw us into the incinerator, '''PLEASE'''." See LogicBomb above.[[/folder]]

He likes space. His favorite thing about space is space. He's gonna go to space. He's the best at space.----* BrokenRecord: Space. Space. Wanna go to space.* CloudCuckoolander: His unhealthy obsession with space certainly qualifies him as one.* CuteMachines: Very adorable, thanks to his chipper voice and fascination with space.* DummiedOut: Several of his lines were deleted from the final game. [[spoiler: Including a few of him [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor regretting his desire to go into space]] when he finally gets there.]]* IncomingHam: Space? SPACE?? '''''SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!'''''* IntercontinuityCrossover: Via a mod collaboration between Valve and Bethesda, it crash-lands in central [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]] after an indeterminate length of time and gets picked up by the Dovahkiin. Wheatley ended up in orbit of Tamriel's skies. It's even possible to have a giant [[HomeRunHitter send the core back into space with a swing of his club]].* JumpedAtTheCall: Immediately detaches itself from the mainframe as soon as [[spoiler:it hears Wheatley mention that he and Chell are in space]], and happily flies off to be where he wants so desperately to be.** [[spoiler:Some extremely depressing DummiedOut lines have him subsequently [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor freaking out because space is too big and wanting to return to Earth]].]]** And thanks to an official Valve release, we know where he ends up: [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Nirn!]] * {{Keet}}: He's ''very'' excited about space.* LukeYouAreMyFather: According to the Space Sphere, its father is space.* MotorMouth: To call him chatty would be an understatement. He will not shut up about space.* NoIndoorVoice--> '''''"SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!"'''''* SpaceIsNoisy: He's clearly audible even in space.* SpaceX: '''Everything''', but especially "space cops" and "space jail".* StealthPun: He is very silly and obsessed with space. In other words, he is "spacy". * {{Squee}}: He's overjoyed when he gets sucked into actual space in the finale.* TalkativeLoon: He never shuts up about space.* WellDoneSonGuy: It seems to believe that space is its father.--> "Dad? I'm in space. (deeper voice) I'm proud of you, son."\\"Dad, are you space? (deeper voice) Yes. Now we are a family again."[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rick the Adventure Sphere]][[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Adventure_Core_3679.png]]->Voiced by Creator/NolanNorth

Stand back, pretty lady. The Adventure Sphere is here to do the job. ----* TheAce: At the very least, in his own mind. According to the [[KnowNothingKnowItAll Fact Sphere]], he's a blowhard and a coward  so there must be something to him.%%* BondOneLiner: DiscussedTrope.* ChivalrousPervert: Yeah, he's a black belt. In pretty much everything. Karate. [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 Jarate]]. Jiu Jitsu. Kick punching. Belt making. Taekwondo. ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGxj3cxYWYY Bedroom.]]'' Not to mention he thinks the [[MaleGaze view]] is great from where you're carrying him.* ClintSquint: Humorously suggested by his eye slit.* DummiedOut: Had several deleted lines, including some dialogue with the other cores.* FastRoping: When Rick first appears on the scene, he's swinging from side to side on a wire, in a manner not unlike a swashbuckling hero come to the rescue.* GentlemanAdventurer: Being spherical and limbless doesn't stand in the way of ADVENTURE!* GutturalGrowler: Nolan North donned his best Solid Snake voice for the adventuresome core.* HandsomeLech: Well, he ''sounds'' handsome, and he can't get enough of Chell.* ILoveTheDead: "All right, your funeral. Your beautiful lady-corpse open casket funeral."* InterspeciesRomance: He immediately takes a liking to Chell.* JumpedAtTheCall: "Quick! What's the situation!?"%% * LargeHam* PreMortemOneLiner: If you give him long enough to think, he'll brainstorm a few and come up with one for the end of the final boss fight. He admits it sounded better in his head after the delivery.* RousingSpeech: "This robot. [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Owes! You! Money!!"]]* ShoutOut: Possibly to another [[TestosteronePoisoning Testosterone-Poisoned]] LargeHam in [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 another one of Valve's titles]].* StayInTheKitchen: He doesn't seem to be used to women taking active roles in adventure or relationships.%% * TestosteronePoisoning[[/folder]]

The Fact Sphere is the most intelligent and well-mannered of all of the 497,356 personality spheres in Aperture Science Industries. As a result, the Fact Sphere is well-respected by 99.99999% of the population and has many friends. The Fact Sphere would never lie to you.----* BlatantLies: He believes UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln did everything important while he was sleepwalking, and Schrodinger just wanted a reason to kill cats.** "Fact: Space does not exist."* CloudCuckoolander: Keeps spewing history, whether it is accurate, or just plain off.* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Some of his ramblings are indeed true. * {{Determinator}}: Not himelf, but he seems to think Edmund Hillary was:--> "Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb Mount Everest, did so accidentally, while chasing a bird."* {{Foreshadowing}}: One of the false facts is about where one of the spheres will end up.* GoodNewsBadNews: "Cellular phones will ''not'' give you cancer, only hepatitis."* IFightForTheStrongestSide:--> ''Whoever wins this battle is clearly superior, and will earn the allegiance of the Fact Sphere.''* InsufferableGenius: Not the nicest of Cores, to say the least. Paradoxically, it just might be the dumbest, which brings us to... * KnowNothingKnowItAll--> "The Fact Sphere is not defective. Its facts are wholly accurate and very interesting."* LittleKnownFacts: Most of his repetoire of trivia includes things like "Humans can survive underwater, but not for very long," and "The square root of rope is string."* LongList: He says "12" and "Pens" multiple times before launching into a list of random fruits and vegetables.** This is actually a BrickJoke to the Co-Op mode. After completing tests in co-op, [=GLaDOS=] will occasionally congratulate one player while telling the other player to memorize a random list. This is one of those lists.* SmallNameBigEgo: Sees himself as the most intelligent and handsome sphere.* TalkativeLoon: Just like the Cake and Curiosity Cores from the original game, this Sphere incessantly babbles random -- and bizarre -- facts.* ThirdPersonPerson: Everytime he praises himself, he refers to himself as ''The Fact Sphere''[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Announcer]]->Voiced by Joe Michaels

An overly cheerful AI Construct that regulates the Aperture Science facility and conducts testing in the abscence of [=GLaDOS=]. Unlike [=GLaDOS=] or the personality cores, he does not appear to be sentient, meaning his lines are pre-recorded and automatically stitched together, like a computerised phone operator.----%% * BreadEggsMilkSquick* CrazyPrepared: Aperture Science gave him recordings and responses for every eventuality. And we do mean ''every''.* DissonantSerenity: He ''always'' talks in a chippery, cheerful tone.* FalseReassurance--> ''" This next test applies the principles of momentum to movement through portals. If the laws of physics no longer apply in the future, God help you."''* ForInconveniencePressOne: -->''If you have questions or concerns regarding this policy, or require a Spanish version of this message, feel free to take a complimentary piece of stationary, and write us a letter''.* ForScience: Utterly dedicated to making sure Science gets done, even in the face of [[AfterTheEnd "potentially apocalyptic circumstances"]].* MissionControl: For the first part of the game.* MissionControlIsOffItsMeds: His response to state and federal regulations regarding potentially lethal tests is [[spoiler:smooth jazz]].%% * MotorMouth* RoboSpeak: Just a hint of it, more than Wheatley, less than [=GLaDOS=].* SarcasmBlind: Subverted. It understands [=GLaDOS'=] sarcasm: -->''*beep* Sarcasm Self Test Complete. *beep*''** But never Wheatley's:-->''Interpreting vague answer as "yes"''.* SayYourPrayers:-->''If the laws of physics no longer apply in the future, God help you.''[[/folder]]

[[folder:Caroline]][[quoteright:187:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Caroline_3563.png]]->Voiced by Creator/EllenMcLain

Cave Johnson's personal assistant, described as the backbone of Aperture Science.----* BrainUploading: [[spoiler:Uploaded into [=GLaDOS=] against her will, on Cave's orders as he was dying of moon dust poisoning.]]* CloudCuckooLandersMinder: When Cave gets hot-headed (which is often), Caroline puts him back on task.* DummiedOut: [[spoiler:The actual BrainUploading scene, mentioned above]]. [=GLaDOS=]'s dialogue makes it clear enough that it did happen, though; we just don't know for sure ''how'' it happened or how Caroline reacted to it.* FateWorseThanDeath: She did not want to be [[spoiler: uploaded into an A.I. from the start. And now she's not only stuck in there, she's -- in a sense -- [[AndIMustScream immortal]].]] * ForScience: Well, Cave at least said she was passionate about science, and [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=]'s attitude]] seems to support the idea that he was right.* GoneHorriblyWrong: The plan was [[spoiler:to upload Caroline into [=GLaDOS=] so that she could run the facility forever. The resulting A.I. personality was considerably less pleasant than human Caroline.]]* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Cave [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre thought Caroline suffered from this]], which is why he felt justified in [[spoiler:having her mind forcibly uploaded against her will -- obviously she was only refusing because she didn't realize how good she'd be at running Aperture forever.]]* GirlFriday: To Cave.* HypercompetentSidekick: Cave, at least, believed she was fully capable of doing his job, but she seemed to be perfectly happy as a secretary, which he attributed to extreme modesty.* MarriedToTheJob: According to Cave Johnson. -->'''Johnson''': "Sorry fellas, she's married... to science!"* MoralityPet: Cave is generally pleasant to her and holds her in very high esteem, which helps balance the attitude of ComedicSociopathy he tends to display otherwise. [[spoiler:In a well-intentioned yet horrifically misplaced show of his appreciation, he orders his scientists to upload her consciousness into an immortal A.I. against her will so that she can take over Aperture after his death]].* MyMasterRightOrWrong: Since [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] experiences her persona as a sort of conscience]], she presumably wasn't a complete sociopath, but she didn't seem to object to the constant stream of blatant ethical violations that characterized Cave's policies for running Aperture.** [[spoiler:On the other hand, if [=GLaDOS=]'s [[InLoveWithYourCarnage reaction to Cave's lemon rant]] is anything to go by, Cave's aggressiveness and willingness to openly express it may have been something she actively liked about him. Of course, it's impossible to tell whether that's just [=GLaDOS=]'s insanity talking.]]* NoNameGiven: Her last name is unknown.* NumberTwo: Cave Johnson's right hand woman. * OriginStory: [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=]'s origin -- she was created in an attempt to achieve immortality through BrainUploading for Cave Johnson, but when he died before the project was ready, Caroline was uploaded in his place so that she could run Aperture forever. This [[GoneHorriblyWrong did not work out well]].]]* PerkyFemaleMinion: ''Yes, Sir!'' Though tellingly, she sounds more concerned than perky by the '70s.* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Originally Cave's assistant was going to be a put-upon YesMan named Greg. But they didn't have time to get a new voice actor, so it was decided Ellen [=McLain=] would do the voice. [[spoiler: Once that casting choice was made, the creators wondered why Caroline and [=GLaDOS=] had the same voice...]]* RepeatAfterMe: {{Invoked}} with Cave and Caroline's homage to a ''Series/TheBurnsAndAllenShow'' routine.-->'''Johnson:''' Say goodbye, Caroline!\\'''Caroline:''' Goodbye, Caroline!* ShoutOut: It's unintentional -- she's actually named after the mother of one of the writers -- but the name Caroline means "[[VideoGame/HalfLife free man]]."* VirtualGhost: Some remnant of [[spoiler:Caroline's personality still exists within [=GLaDOS=]. While [=GLaDOS=] claims to delete her, there are some hints that she's still around. It is thus also common in fanfics to have her serve as a SpiritAdvisor for [=GLaDOS=].]][[/folder]]

[[folder: The Bird]]A bird that has made a home for itself in the halls of Aperture's Enrichment Center.----* BigBadEnsemble: Strictly speaking, ''yes''. The bird is a secondary antagonist in the main campaign, though obviously [=GLaDOS=] and [[spoiler:Wheatley]] are bigger threats.* TheDogWasTheMastermind: [[spoiler:The antagonist taking over the facility in the ''Peer Review'', causing chaos and ruffling [=GLaDOS=]'s cool is... the bird, inadvertently building her nest on a crucial keyboard.]] * InterfaceScrew: [[spoiler:Turns the lights off at one point, requiring Atlas and P-body to use night vision. Immediately turns the lights back on, blinding them.]]* MamaBear: As to be expected of a bird, threatening her nest or eggs causes her to attack.* ObliviouslyEvil: [[spoiler:Building a nest on top of a keyboard that happens to be an old version of [=GLaDOS=]'s body, and thus has a degree of control over Aperture, causes chaos. Then it starts to peck away at the keys...]]* ParentalAbandonment: [[spoiler:After Atlas and P-body shoo her away, she leaves her eggs behind in her nest, which are later taken in and hatched in an incubation chamber by [=GLaDOS=]]].* TheUnfought: [[spoiler:After the final puzzle in ''Peer Review'', the bots drive it away in a cutscene.]]* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: [=GLaDOS=] is so terrified of it that the mere ''thought'' of its presence causes her to have a panic attack.[[/folder]]

Greg is Cave Johnson's put-upon assistant, introduced in The Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC. He never directly appears or speaks, but most of the new test chamber dialogue involves Cave being corrected by Greg about various logical fallacies Cave believes in (such as confusing alternate universes with time travel). According to Cave, Greg was responsible for coming up with the idea for the Perpetual Testing Initiative.----* BeleagueredAssistant: Well, he has to put up with Cave.%% * OnlySaneEmployee* CreepyChild: Greg's creepy daughter enjoys saying weird things to test subjects when she sneaks into Cave's office.* OnlyOneName* OracularUrchin: Greg has a daughter who likes to sneak into Cave's office and talk to the test subjects. Cave is especially unnerved by the way she talks:-->'''Greg's Creepy Kid:''' "We're gonna test forever and ever and ever..."* SpearCounterpart: He's a male version of Caroline, minus the special affection Cave Johnson holds for an assistant of the opposite gender.* TheVoiceless: Sort of. Greg speaks with Cave multiple times in the DLC, but besides some muffled mumbling the player can only hear Cave's side of the conversation.[[/folder]]

[[folder: Alternate Cave Johnsons]]Introduced in the ''Perpetual Testing Initiative'', there are alternate universe versions of Cave Johnson who will talk to you, which forces the "real" Cave Johnson to use a CatchPhrase ("Chariots," later "chariots, chariots") to differentiate from the others.----* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Dark!Cave's portal guns work on any smooth surface, not just moon rock gel covered ones. This serves to make his test subjects much more difficult to deal with.* AncientTradition: Cave of Aperture Rituals is presiding over one of these in order to prevent the end of the world. It involves hiring astronauts, war heroes and olympians to make love to a giant bird.* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: One Cave and the inhabitants of his universe have transformed into beings of pure light; though pleased, they'd originally hoped to transform into pillars of pure salt.* BenevolentBoss: Nice!Cave, who gives bonuses to his testers and heaps praise upon them while randomly saying "chariots".* BigCreepyCrawlies: ** Mantis!Cave, who informs test subjects that they're postponing injections with Homo Sapien DNA.** In one universe, the Mantis Men take over the enrichment center, with Cave frantically urging everyone to get out before they break through his barricade.** There's also an attack by killer ants attempting to commander the nations's sugar supplies at Fort Sugar Knox in Kentucky, leading to a huge firefight. [[spoiler: Though it turns out to just be a movie Cave!Prime was watching.]]* BizarreHumanBiology: In one universe, people seem to breathe peanut dust and can suffer from an allergy to air.** In Dark!Cave's universe, people seem to breathe methane.* BrainUploading: [=CaveDOS=]* CallBack: Many of the Caves give their own version of the introduction given in the main game when Chell uncovers the old testing labs.* DemonicPossession: Magic!Cave of Aperture Paranormal is host to a tiny but powerful demon that lives in a secret place in his mouth.* EvilIsPetty: Dark!Cave finds the time to prank Cave!Prime while simultaneously thwarting his plans.* EvilTwin: Cave!Prime regards a Cave Johnson who argued with him as this, referring to him as Dark!Cave.* ExtranormalInstitute: Aperture Paranormal, an institute dedicated to studying and harnessing magical phenomena.* FantasticVoyagePlot: One Cave reveals that the test chamber you're in is a tiny structure floating around inside in his bloodstream. He asks you to find his partially shrunken car keys, otherwise he's gonna have to call AAA.* GeniusLoci: Planet!Cave.* GiverOfLameNames: Robot-a-cop? Blapeture Mesa? Even across universes, Cave isn't great with names.* GoodCounterpart: Most of the parallel Caves are as evil as the regular one, but there is a Nice Cave who offers you a bonus.* {{Hobos}}: "Michigan Slim" Cave Johnson, the Hobo King.* ImAHumanitarian:** Creepy!Cave wants to eat your hairs and feet.** There's also the Cave from the world where Film/SoylentGreen is commonplace, who is more concerned with its prices than its ingredients.* IllBoy: One of the parallel Caves is a little boy with a terminal illness who seemingly watches test subjects overcome their own obstacles as a way of motivating himself to recover. [[BlackComedy He doesn't make it]].* InsectoidAliens: Mantis!Cave.* JerkAss: Dark!Cave and his test subjects come across as this.-->'''Cave Johnson''': They're not even really testing anymore. They just all portaled in, made a human pyramid, ate my lunch and portaled out.* LadyLand: Cavina Johnson's world.* OnlySaneMan:** The Cave Johnson who is a pencil-pusher working for Aperture Chief Rattmann.** The Cave Johnson in charge of [[VideoGame/HalfLife Blapeture]] [[{{Portmanteau}} Mesa]], who is appalled by the reckless experiments and [[ForWantOfANail cancels the project that would result in the Resonance Cascade]].** Warden!Cave had to tell his prisoners that the [[AirVentEscape air ducts were not an escape route]], but how they ventilate the facility. [[spoiler: When he's shived after a power outage shut off the forcefield doors, he laments how actual doors would have been much better]].** Space!Cave has to constantly remind his test subjects that the tests are being conducted in a space station, and that there's no air outside the facility. [[TooDumbToLive Few of them listen]].** [[TomatoSurprise Cave!Prime]] has a moment of this, [[spoiler: when he listens to Greg and [[ForWantOfANail cancels the [=GLaDOS=] project]] after [=CaveDOS=] goes insane]].* OppositeSexClone: Possibly Matriarch Cave, though it's unlikely.* ProperlyParanoid: There's one Cave Johnson who was monitoring multiverse activity and wanted to build defenses in case of an invasion. Unfortunately for him, the staff didn't listen, though probably because he wanted to use their wages to build the defenses and more monitoring equipment.* PunnyName: Dark!Cave. Think about it...* SendInTheClones: Because of the multiverse, there are infinite Caves out there.* SenseLossSadness: Part of the reason why [=CaveDOS=] goes crazy.* SpacePolice: Chief Warden Cave.* ThrowTheDogABone: [[spoiler:Cave!Prime manages to find a universe made of money and cancels the [=GLaDOS=] initiative, ensuring that Prime!Aperture will live on for a long time.]]* WhamLine: After the "Computer!Cave" arc, [[spoiler: who we were '''led''' to believe was]] Cave!Prime says the following:--> "Whoa! Chariots chariots. For some reason, some of the audio was bleeding through in this universe. Don't know if you were catching the subtext there, but that computer Cave is crazy. So: [[spoiler: Greg was right. [[ForWantOfANail As of now]], [[RetGone we are cancelling the]] [[SelfDemonstrating/GLaDOS genetic lifeform disk operating system initiative]].]]"* WhoWantsToLiveForever: [=CaveDOS=] simply finds his immortality boring, especially since he can read every book ever written in just a few seconds. Even altering them all to be about the Franchise/{{ghostbusters}} gets dull after a while.* VerbalTic: Nice!Cave randomly says "Chariots," briefly upsetting Cave Prime's attempt to use it as a code word. From then on, he says it twice.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Cut Characters]]'''Mel''' was originally supposed to be the main character of Portal 2, then the co-op player 2 character alongside Chell. She was discarded when the creators decided robots would suit the chaotic, often death-filled nature of co-op mode better.

'''Betty''' or the '''Gyroscopic Liability Absolver and Disk Operating System''', was a personality core who would appear at the beginning of each test chamber in the original Portal 2, which took place in the past, to rattle off legal jargon in regards to the dangers of testing. Her role was mostly replaced by that of the Announcer.----%%* HeroicMime: Mel.* PaletteSwap: Mel's character model is a recolored (blonde with a blue suit) Chell from the ''first'' game.* PunnyName: Betty's title: the Gyroscopic Liability Absolver and Disk Operating System. Look at the first letter of each word. [[spoiler: It's [=GLAaDOS=].]]* RedOniBlueOni: Mel's blue, while Chell is orange.* ThemeNaming: Chell 'n' Mel.[[/folder]]